K^^ 


tihmry  of  Cbe  t:heolo0ical  ^emmarjp 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


•a^i> 


PRESENTED  BY 


The  Estate  of 
Rev,  Robert  0.  Kirkwood 


BX  5937  .B83  S4  1910 
Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-189 
Seeking  life 


Phillips  Brooks's  Sermons 

In  Ten  Volumes 

1st  Series 

The  Purpose  and  Use  of  Comfort 

And  Other  Sermons 

2(1  Series 

The  Candle  of  the  Lord 

And  Other  Sermons 

3d  Series 

Sermons  Preached  in  English 
Churches 

And  Other  Sermons 

4th  Series 

Visions  and  Tasks      And  Other  Sermons 

5th  Soies 

The  Light  of  the  World 

And  Other  Sermons 

6th  Series 

The  Battle  of   Life      And  Other  Sermons 

7th  Series 

Sermons  for  the  Principal  Festi- 
vals and  Fasts  of  the  Church  Year 

Edited  by  the  Rev.  John  Cotton  Brooks 

8th  Series 

New  Starts  in  Life     And  Other  Sermons 

9th  Series 

The  Law  of  Growth 

And  Other  Sermons 

10th  Series 

Seeking  Life      And  Other  Sermons 

E.   P.   Dutton   and   Company 

31  West  23d  Street                                                     New  York 

Seeking  Life 


^^ 


Se^ 


And  Other  Sermons 


By  the 
Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks,  D.D. 


Tenth  Series 


N  EW  YORK 

E  •  P  •  DUTTON  ^  COMPANY 
31  West  Twenty-Third  Street 

I  91  O 


Copyright,  1904 

BY 

E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  COMPANY 
Published,  September,  1904 


Ube  Iknicfterbeckec  ipcess.  mew  IQotft 


PREFACE. 

With  this  volume  the  publication  of  the  sermons 
of  Bishop  Brooks  closes.  His  friends  think  it  is 
better  to  stop  somewhat  short  of  exhausting  the 
best  of  the  material  in  their  hands  than  to  run  any 
risk  of  including  that  which,  however  good  in  itself, 
must  still  be  counted  the  second-best  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  for  no  man  can  invariably  reach  to  the 
height  of  his  own  standard  of  attainment.  The 
series,  as  a  whole,  comprises  sermons  written  in  the 
various  periods  of  his  youth,  growth,  and  maturity, 
and  is  representative  of  every  quality  that  made  him 
the  great  preacher  of  his  day,  listened  to  with  keen 
interest  and  affectionate  admiration,  both  at  home 
and  abroad.  As  a  contribution  to  the  forces  that 
make  for  righteousness  in  the  world,  their  value  is 
inestimable;  and  their  welcome  by  Christians  of 
every  name,  by  all  who  feel  that  the  only  worthy 
life  is  made  up  of  love  to  God  and  service  to  man, 
is  sure  to  be  eager  and  cordial. 

Of  the  unpublished  sermons  many  were  written 
for  special  occasions,  and  therefore  are  not  of  inter- 
est to  the  general  reader.  Large  portions  of  others 
have  been  included  in  various  compilations;  and  it 
is  intended  to  make  a  second  volume  of  Lenten 
Readings,  uniform  with  that  entitled  The  More 
Abundant  Life,  from  such  portions  of  the  remainder 
as  are  suited  to  the  purpose. 


W.  M.  L.  J. 


New  York,  June,  1904. 


CONTENTS. 

SERMON  ^  '*''' 

I.     Seeking  Life        .        <       .        .        .         i 

"For  thus  saith  the  Lord  unto  the  house  of 
Israel,  Seek  ye  me,  and  ye  shall  live."— Amos  v. 
4.     (June  6,  1875.) 

II.     The  Child's  Leadership     ...       19 

"  And  a  little  child  shall  lead  them."— ISAIAH 
xi.  6.     (Jan.  11,  1880.) 

III.     The  Nearness  of  God         .        •        •      37 

'  "That   they   should  seek   the   Lord,  if  haply 

they  might  feel  after  him,  and  find  him,  though 
he  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us.— Acts  xvii. 
27.     (Feb.  10,  1878.) 

IV.     The  Old-New  and  the  New-Old      .       57 

' '  But  these  things  have  I  told  you,  that  when  the 
time  shall  come,  ye  may  remember  that  I  told  you 
of  them."— John  xvi,  4.     (May  22,  1887.) 

V.     Indestructible  Possessions         .        .       74 

"  For  when  he  dieth,  he  shall  carry  nothing 
away  ;  his  glory  shall  not  descend  after  him." — 
Psalm  xlix.  17.     (Nov.  13,  1881.) 

VI.     The  Necessity  of  the  Social  Life  .       91 

"  Woe  to  him  that  is  alone  when  he  falleth,  for 
he  hath  not  another  to  help  him  up."  —  ECCLESI- 
ASTES  iv.  10.     (Feb.  20,  1876.) 

V 


vi  CONTENTS 

SERMON  PAGE 

VII.     Living  Epistles no 

"  Ye  are  our  epistle,  .  .  .  known  and  read  of  all 
men." — II.  Corinthians  iii.  2.     (Jan.  10,  1888.) 

VIII.     Individual  AND  Collective  Humanity     126 

"  Jesus  then  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  saw  a  great 
company." — John  vi.  5.     (June  22,  1890.) 

IX.     Word  and  Deed  .....     142 

"For  he  spake,  and  it  was  done." — PsALM 
xxxiii.  9.     (Feb.  18,  1877.) 

X.     The  Tree  of  Life        ....     161 

"And  he  placed  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of 
Eden  Cherubims,  and  a  flaming  sword  which 
turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of 
life." — Genesis  iii.  24.     (June  18,  1876.) 

XI.     Self-Consciousness  and  Self-Forget- 

FULNEss  ......     178 

"  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he 
that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it." — 
Matthew  x.  39.     (Nov.  18,  1883.) 

XII.     The  New  Birth 193 

"  Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the 
kingdom  of  God."— John  iii.  3.     (Oct.  17,  1875.) 

XIII.  Light  from  Darkness         .         .         .     210 

"  If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  dark- 
ness, how  great  is  that  darkness  !  " — Matthew 
vi.  23.     (Jan.  4,  1880.) 

XIV,  Average  and  Absolute  Virtue  .     224 

"Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye 
for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  :  But  I  say  unto 
you,  Resist  not  evil."— Matthew  v.  38.  (R.  V.) 
(Jan.  29,  1884.) 


CONTENTS 


vn 

PAGE 


XV.     Truth   Passes   through   Faith   into 

Power    ......     241 

"  Not  being  mixed  with  faith." — Hebrews  iv. 
2.     (Sept.  21,  1879.) 

XVI.     The  Mystery  of  Man         .         .         -259 

"  For  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man, 
save  the  spirit  of  man  that  is  in  him  ?  even  so  the 
things  of  God  knoweth  no  man,  but  the  Spirit  of 
God." — I.  Corinthians  ii.  11.     (Jan.  9,  1876.) 

XVII.     The  Endless  Conflict        .         .         .     277 
"And  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the        '-^ 
woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed.     It 
shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou  shalt  bruise  his 
heel." — Genesis  iii.  15.     (Junes,  1877.) 

XVIII.     Bulk  and  Essence       .         .         .         .295 

"  A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  smok- 
ing flax  shall  he  not  quench,  till  he  send  forth  judg- 
ment  unto  victory." — Matthew  xii.  20.  (Oct. 
II,  1885.) 

XIX.     Natural  and  Spiritual  Forces         .     312 

"  Truth  shall  flourish  out  of  the  earth,  and  right- 
eousness shall  look  down  from  heaven."  —  PsALM 
Ixxxv.  II.     (Sept.  20,  1885.) 

XX.     Work  and  Rest 331 

"  Man  goeth  forth  unto  his  work  and  to  his  la- 
bor until  the  evening." — Psalm  civ.  23.  (March 
23,  1874.) 

XXI.  New  Wine  in  New  Bottles  ,  .  353 
' '  Neither  do  men  put  new  wine  into  old  bottles : 
else  the  bottles  break,  and  the  wine  runneth  out, 
and  the  bottles  perish  :  but  they  put  new  wine 
into  new  bottles,  and  both  are  preserved." — 
Matthew  ix.  17.     (Jan.  3,  1876.) 


SEEKING   LIFE. 


I. 

SEEKING   LIFE. 

*'  For  thus  saith  the  Lord  unto  the  house  of  Israel,  Seek  ye  me, 
and  ye  shall  live." — Amos  v.  4. 

These  are  Old  Testament  words,  and  the  Old 
Testament  is  everywhere  a  preparation  and  anticipa- 
tion of  the  New.  Its  promises  are  types  of  better 
things  which  men  had  not  yet  learned  to  desire,  but 
for  which  they  were  made  ready  by  the  clear,  tangi- 
ble benefits  which  were  put  at  once  into  their  pos- 
session. You  want  to  prepare  a  child  to  receive 
from  you  the  most  spiritual  blessings.  You  want 
to  give  him  courage,  patience,  truth.  You  want  to 
win  him  to  Christ.  But  how  can  you  begin?  It 
may  be — and  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  if  it  is  frankly 
done — it  may  be  that  you  have  to  gain  his  confi- 
dence by  giving  him  at  once  the  things  which  he 
can  understand,  shelter  and  food  and  clothes  and 
playthings.  Then,  when  he  trusts  you  and  knows 
that  you  mean  his  good,  you  may  go  on  and  give 
him  the  far  more  precious  spiritual  gifts. 


2  SEEKING  LIFE 

Now,  these  two  treatments  are  really  the  Old  and 
the  New  Testaments.  The  Old  Testament  gave  the 
people  Moses,  who  led  them  out  of  a  bodily  slavery 
in  Egypt  into  a  physical  plenty  and  luxuriance  in 
Canaan.  If  they  had  really  been  won  by  that  mercy 
into  confidence  in  and  love  for  God,  they  would 
have  been  ready  for  the  larger  gift  when  the  New 
Testament  ofTered  them  Christ,  the  spiritual  De- 
liverer who  came  to  lead  them  out  of  the  slavery  of 
sin  into  the  freedom  and  joy  of  holiness.  This  is 
the  simplest  of  all  the  relations  between  the  outward 
and  visible  mercies  of  God,  on  one  hand,  and  the 
inward  and  spiritual  mercies  on  the  other — that  the 
visible  mercies  are  given  us  to  win  our  confidence, 
so  that  He  can  give  us  the  spiritual  mercies.  With 
this  idea  clearly  in  our  minds,  we  can  often  see 
issuing  from  it  glimpses  of  light  upon  the  dark  parts 
of  God's  treatment  of  us — why  this  mercy  was  given 
us  when  we  seemed  so  undeserving,  and  why  that 
other  was  snatched  away  when  we  were  making  only 
a  sensual  and  selfish  use  of  it. 

These  words  of  Amos,  then,  out  of  the  Old 
Testament,  probably  had  at  first  their  purely  physi- 
cal application:  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Seek  ye  me, 
and  ye  shall  live."  It  was  that  promise  of  long 
life,  as  a  reward  of  obedience,  which  is  heard  all 
through  the  older  Dispensation.  That  promise  had 
met  Abraham  at  his  first  calling.  It  had  been  re- 
peated in  the  ears  of  all  the  Patriarchs.  It  had 
dropped  in  continual  reiteration  of  encouragement 
and  warning  upon  all  the  various  conditions  of  that 
ever-changing  Jewish  history:  "Be  obedient,  and 


SEEKING  LIFE  3 

you  shall  live.  Break  my  laws,  and  you  shall 
die." 

There  was  great  truth  and  reality  in  that  old 
Jewish  motive.  We  know  how  many  men  distrust 
it  now,  how  many  men  are  wholly  unable  to  believe 
that  there  is  any  connection  between  the  length  of 
men's  lives  and  their  faithful  keeping  of  God's  laws. 
And  yet  it  is  very  strange  that  while,  on  one  side, 
men  it  seems  are  learning  to  doubt  this  more  and 
more;  at  the  same  time,  on  another  side,  men  are 
coming  to  believe  it  as  their  fathers  never  did.  In 
tracing  the  connection  with  fearful  clearness  between 
disease  and  vice,  in  showing  how  the  evils  which  men 
have  assigned  to  chance  or  fate  come  really  from 
the  violation  of  natural  laws,  in  every  new  connec- 
tion which  is  traced  between  the  welfare  of  the 
physical  frame  and  the  moralities,  such  as  sobriety, 
purity,  peace, — in  all  these  departments  where  our 
modern  spirit  is  so  busy,  we  are  really  gathering  a 
new  and  mighty  emphasis  into  the  old  words  of  God 
to  the  house  of  Israel:  "Seek  ye  me,  and  ye  shall 
live."  We  may  be  stopping  short-sightedly  in  sec- 
ond causes,  and  talking  of  "laws  of  nature  "  rather 
than  of  "God,"  but  this  belief,  which  is  growing 
stronger  and  stronger, — that  moral  character  and 
physical  well-being  have  to  do  with  one  another, — 
must  finally  break  through  everything  between,  and 
find  the  real  cause  of  such  a  connection  in  a  per- 
sonal God,  whom  to  obey  is  to  live,  whom  to 
disobey  is  to  die. 

But  now  let  us  take  the  New  Testament  meaning 
of  this  Old  Testament  promise.     When  God  told 


4  SEEKING  LIFE 

His  people  that  they  should  have  long  lives,  that 
their  bodies  should  be  so  strong  and  vigorous  that 
they  should  last  out  many  years — that  was  a  great 
promise  in  itself.  Physical  life  is  good.  To  see  the 
sun,  to  tread  the  earth,  to  feel  life  singing  through 
our  veins  is  very  good ;  we  feel  it  so.  But  man, 
when  he  is  at  his  best,  and  God,  who  always  is  at 
His  best,  alike  refuse  to  think  of  this  physical  life 
as  final.  At  its  highest  height  it  means  some- 
thing higher  than  itself.  Both  as  type  and  as  in- 
strument, the  body  in  its  best  health  stands  for 
the  healthy  soul  behind  it.  All  that  we  say  of  the 
body  may  be  said  of  the  soul  as  well.  It,  too,  lives 
and  dies,  is  sick  or  healthy,  suffers  and  enjoys, 
grows  and  decays.  And  when  we  are  truly  sensible 
of  the  superior  value  of  the  soul,  we  are  ready  to 
take  every  new  gift  of  strength  that  God  gives  the 
body,  as  a  token  from  Him  that  He  means  the  soul 
to  be  strong.  So  the  New  Testament  correspondent 
of  the  Old  Testament  promise  of  physical  life,  is 
spiritual  life,  the  soul's  life. 

We  know  what  is  meant  by  a  live  soul.  The 
young  people  who  are  listening  to  me  have  begun 
perhaps  to  discover  already  how  much  of  their  souls 
there  is  that  is  really  not  alive,  to  feel  how  impeded 
and  restrained  they  are.  Those  of  you  who  are 
older  know  the  long  struggle  against  spiritual  dead- 
ness  only  too  well.  Perhaps  you  have  given  it  up 
in  despair,  and  have  thrown  forward  into  the  other 
world  all  the  hope  that  you  have  yet  left  of  spiritual 
life.  "When  I  get  there,  then  I  shall  live,"  you 
say.     The  life  of  the  soul  means  the  perfectly  free 


SEEKING  LIFE  5 

and  healthy  action  of  all  its  powers  on  every  side. 
When  we  get  sight  of  that,  when  we  hear  that 
promise  in  its  words,  then  the  Old  Testament  offer, 
"Seek  me,  and  your  soul  shall  live,"  has  turned  into 
the  New  Testament  invitation,  "He  that  hath  the 
Son  hath  Life."  "Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live 
also." 

So  far  we  have  been  trying  to  see  what,  in  the 
deepest  sense,  it  really  is  to  live.  But  we  want  to  y" 
understand  also  what  it  is  to  "seek  the  Lord," 
which  is  declared  to  be  the  condition  of  true  life. 
When  we  know  that,  we  shall  be  ready  to  bind  the 
two  together  and  understand  the  whole.  What  is 
it,  then,  to  seek  anything  which  is  a  condition  of 
life?  I  suppose  it  is  to  put  one's  self  into  sympathy 
or  harmony  with  that  thing  and  its  processes,  so 
that  we  shall  not  work  against  it,  but  work  with  it, 
and  be  always  carried  along  by  its  currents  to  our 
best  results. 

Take  one  or  two  universal  illustrations  of  this 
idea.  We  are  all  beings  living  in  the  midst  of 
nature.  Natural  forces  in  immense  variety  are  all 
around  us.  They  are  working  ceaselessly  either  to 
build  up  or  to  destroy  our  human  life.  Whether 
they  build  us  or  destroy  us  depends  upon  how  we 
relate  ourselves  to  them.  If  we  are  willing  to  study 
them  and  obey  them,  to  find  the  nature  of  fire, 
water,  air,  and  treat  them  in  conformity  with  their 
natures,  then  they  are  our  servants  and  we  live  by 
them.  If  we  disregard  their  natures,  and  let  our 
lives  run  across  their  processes  at  random,  how  soon 
they  sweep  us  aside  and  kill  us !     The  fire  burns  us 


6  SEEKING  LIFE 

or  the  water  drowns  us  ruthlessly.  They  are  not 
life,  but  death,  to  us. 

When  one  has  learnt  all  this,  when  he  has  seen 
how  positive  and  imperious,  how  jealous  Nature  is, 
how  ready  to  help  us,  but  how  determined  that  it 
must  be  in  her  own  way,  well  may  he  hear  Nature 
crying  out  to  him  and  all  his  human  brethren,  "Seek 
me,  and  ye  shall  live."  With  all  her  myriad  voices 
she  implores  men  to  understand  her,  so  that  they 
may  intelligently  suit  their  lives  to  her,  and  draw 
her  richness  from  her  thousand  breasts:  "I  want  to 
help  and  feed  you,  but  I  cannot  if  you  will  not  seek 
me,  bending  your  intelligence  and  your  will  to  me." 
What  has  made  the  difference  between  your  civilized 
house  and  the  hut  of  the  savage?  It  is  not  wholly, 
but  in  part  it  is,  that  man  has  intelligently  sought 
nature,  and  so  has  lived  more  fully.  He  has  learnt 
the  nature  of  wood  and  stone  and  clay  and  iron, 
and  has  overcome  them  all  by  yielding  to  them,  in 
the  course  of  the  ages  that  lie  between  the  mansion 
and  the  wigwam. 

Or,  again,  we  are  all  living  under  a  fixed  govern- 
ment and  certain  laws.  Our  national  life  and  social 
life  have  running  through  them  certain  great  shafts 
of  law,  to  which  everything  must  be  bound.  Those 
laws  have  life  and  death  within  them.  By  them  the 
rich  life  of  our  most  perfect  household  is  protected ; 
by  them  our  noblest  citizen  has  been  led  on  to  the 
influence  which  he  enjoys;  and  by  them  the  poor 
wretch  who  was  condemned  for  murder  yesterday 
must  lose  his  life.  We  love  the  laws  and  all  the 
deeper  principles  of  right  and  wrong  that  lie  below 


SEEKING  LIFE  7 

them ;  we  love  them  and  we  live  in  them,  and  all 
our  life  enlarges.  We  put  ourselves  into  the  atti- 
tude of  obedience,  and  every  little  statute  on  the 
books  becomes  the  ally  of  our  living.  Or,  we  grow 
obstinate  and  wilful,  and  every  slightest  law,  every 
small  conventionality,  is  up  against  us  and  will  not 
rest  till  we  are  hunted  down.  The  strong  wind  of 
righteousness  blows  across  the  world.  If  we  will 
walk  with  it,  it  all  helps  us.  If  we  will  walk  against 
it,  every  little  zephyr  in  it  becomes  our  enemy  and 
buffets  us.  What  has  made  the  difference  between 
the  well-esteemed  citizen  who  has  justly  won  his 
fellow-men's  honor,  and  your  poor  outcast  and  vaga- 
bond who  has  won  every  man's  contempt  or,  at  the 
best,  his  pity?  Is  it  not  that  one  has  worked  with 
the  laws  all  his  life,  and  the  other  has  worked  with 
the  law  in  his  face  all  the  way?  When  we  see  how 
clear  and  positive  all  this  is,  we  can  hear  all  the 
laws — first  the  great  solemn  tones  of  the  funda- 
mental moral  law,  the  law  of  right  and  wrong, 
speaking  behind  all;  and  then  the  chorus  of  its 
children,  all  the  special  statutes  to  which  the  moral 
law  has  given  birth — calling  together  in  our  ears, 
"  'Seek  me,  and  ye  shall  live.'  Understand  me  and 
obey  me ;  so  only  in  a  law-governed  world  can  men's 
lives  come  to  their  best." 

Or,  once  more,  the  same  is  true  of  humankind. 
We  get  a  large  part  of  the  stimulus  of  our  life  from 
one  another.  The  most  seemingly  self-dependent 
of  us  has  not  all  his  springs  in  himself.  He  draws 
much  of  his  best  subterraneously  from  his  neigh- 
bors.    But  how  do  we  get  life  from  one  another? 


8  SEEKING  LIFE 

Is  it  by  sympathy  or  by  antagonism?  Is  it  by  in- 
telligence or  misconception?  Ah,  you  must  know 
how  dry  and  fruitless  your  best  friend  was  to  you  un- 
til you  really  understood  him.  His  acts,  which  now 
are  all  full  of  inspiration  for  you,  were  dead  enough 
until  you  saw  the  soul  with  which  he  did  them.  His 
words,  which  now  fire  your  enthusiasm,  were  cold 
as  ice  until  you  knew  the  friendly  heart  they  sprang 
from.  You  know  another  man,  perhaps,  who  does 
not  comprehend  this  inspiring  friend  of  yours.  He 
is  always  coming  up  the  stream,  always  coming  into 
hostile  contact  with  him.  When  he  meets  your 
friend,  he  is  not  stimulated  to  his  best,  as  you  are, 
but  crushed  into  stupidity  or  exasperated  into  rude- 
ness. You  feel  that  it  is  better  for  them  not  to 
meet.  What  is  the  difference?  Are  you  not  sure 
that  it  is  a  lack  of  sympathy?  Your  friend  cannot 
give  himself  to  one  who  will  not  come  to  him.  To 
you  he  gives  himself  more  and  more.  "Seek  me, 
and  you  shall  live,"  he  is  always  crying  to  you. 
"I  sought  him,  and  did  live  "  seems  to  you,  as  you 
look  back,  to  tell  all  the  story  of  your  life  with  him. 
Some  men  are  naturally  and  always  seekers,  in 
the  sense  which  I  have  tried  to  make  plain  by  all 
these  illustrations.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  are 
always  writhing  and  struggling  after  some  new  thing, 
but  they  are  ready  and  quick  of  sympathy,  and  so 
they  enter  freely  into  relations  with  people  and 
things,  and  get  the  best  out  of  everything.  They 
are  not  suspicious.  They  have  largeness  and  spirit- 
uality. They  see  what  people  and  things  are  trying 
to  do.     They  discern  which  way  the  most  sluggish- 


SEEKING  LIFE  9 

looking  stream  is  really  running;  and,  quickly  sym- 
pathizing with  its  movement,  they  gain  its  stimulus. 
Seeking  everything  with  instinctive  sympathy,  they 
seem  to  live  by  everything.  All  things  make  con- 
tribution to  their  lives.  For  them  birds  sing  and 
breezes  blow  The  laws  of  the  State,  the  forces  of 
Society,  seem  to  work  for  their  good.  And  every- 
where that  they  go,  the  taste,  the  culture,  the 
vitality,  the  character  of  the  men  whom  they  meet, 
seems  to  be  brought  out  instantly  and  shared  with 
them.  Men,  women,  and  children  help  them.  So 
they  put  everything  under  tribute,  not  by  exacting 
demands,  but  by  the  cordial  way  with  which  they 
enter  into  the  life  of  everything  and  get  its  move- 
ment, as  a  man  gets  the  movement  of  the  stream  on 
which  he  floats. 

But  we  must  leave  our  illustrations  and  go  on. 
The  world  is  not  ultimately  governed  by  either  of 
these  forces  of  which  we  have  been  speaking — by 
natural  forces,  by  law,  or  by  man.  Behind  them 
all,  under  them  all,  is  God.  It  is  beautiful  to  look 
abroad  and  see  how  everywhere  men,  sure  that  they 
had  not  got  to  the  end  of  things  until  they  found 
Him,  have  always  pushed  on  through  everything 
that  stood  between,  and  discovered  God  at  last. 
Nature  has  seemed  to  men  shallow  unless  His  will 
was  in  it.  Law  has  seemed  artificial  unless  it  issued 
from  His  nature.  Man  has  seemed  unaccountable 
save  as  His  child.  And  so  we  all  feel  God  behind 
the  whole.  No  doubt  we  feel  Him  very  difTerently. 
The  boy's  heart  leaps  with  one  movement  at  His 
discovered  presence,  and  the  old  man's  with  another. 


lo  SEEKING  LIFE 

One  soul  discovers  Him  in  the  blueness  of  the  peace- 
ful sky,  and  another  sees  His  fire  burn  down  in  the 
red  chasm  of  a  sin's  punishment;  but  most  wonder- 
ful of  all  things  in  the  world  is  this  endless  pressure 
of  all  souls  backward,  this  refusal  to  be  satisfied 
until  we  find  God. 

And  when  God  once  has  been  discovered,  there 
must  be  one  purpose  for  a  man  who  wants  to  live 
his  fullest  life  that  will  overtop  every  other  purpose. 
And  that  purpose  must  be  to  attain  the  most  perfect 
sympathy  and  co-operation  with  God.  If  by  deep 
sympathy  with  nature  we  get  her  life;  if  by  under- 
standing the  law  and  obeying  it,  we  make  it  build 
us  up  to  our  best ;  if  by  knowing  and  co-operating 
with  a  man  we  share  his  goodness  and  vitality ;  what 
then  of  God?  If  we  can  understand  and  obey  and 
sympathize  with  and  co-operate  with  Him,  then  in 
the  same  way.  His  life  shall  be  our  life,  we  shall  live 
by  Him  ;  in  one  word,  if  we  seek  Him,  we  shall  truly 
live. 

"Seek  Him  " — have  we  not  found  out  something 
of  what  that  deep  word  means?  It  is  the  living  in 
His  sympathy,  to  love  His  loves  and  hate  His  hates, 
to  think  His  thoughts  after  Him,  to  see  the  working 
out  of  His  purposes  and  make  them  our  own,  and 
to  rejoice  if  we  can  put  a  finger's  strength  to  their 
fulfilment,  —  this  is  to  seek  God.  And  He  who 
does  this  gets  God's  life.  He  seeks  God,  and  he 
lives. 

I  am  anxious  to  make  the  seeking  of  God  appear 
to  be  this  profound  and  thorough  thing,  because  so 
often,  as  I  think,  the  enfeeblement  of  religion  has 


SEEKING   LIFE  ii 

come  in  just  here, — by  making  the  search  after  God 
seem  something  different  from  this.  Ah,  my  dear 
friends,  it  is  not  seeking  God's  favor;  it  is  seeking 
God  Himself.  It  is  not  hurrying  to  Him  with  sins 
to  be  forgiven,  merely  because  it  is  not  safe  to  stay 
away.  The  search  after  forgiveness  is  a  noble  thing, 
but  only  noble  as  behind  it  there  abides  a  deep 
dissatisfaction  with  our  absence  from  the  Lord,  and 
an  eager  impatience  with  the  wickedness  that  stands 
between  our  souls  and  Him.  "Seek  ye  the  Lord 
while  he  may  be  found ;  call  ye  upon  him  while  he 
is  near," — what  is  the  warning  that  is  given  there? 
What  is  the  danger  that  is  threatened  in  those  oft- 
quoted  words?  Is  it  that  if  we  do  not  ask  forgive- 
ness, some  day  God  will  be  angry  and  say,  "I  will 
not  give  you  forgiveness  now,  no  matter  how  you 
beg  "?  Is  it  not — and  is  not  that  far  more  terrible? 
— that  if  we  will  not  bind  our  life  to  His  life,  some 
day  our  life  shall  die  out  in  all  its  best  parts ;  that 
the  perception  and  power  of  holiness  will  leave  us; 
that  God  will  carry  on  His  great  and  beautiful  pur- 
poses, and  we  shall  have  no  part  in  them ;  that  we 
shall  miss  all  the  best  that  we  might  be,  because  we 
would  not  try  to  love  and  be  like  Him  by  whom 
only  we  can  be  our  best?  This,  this  is  the  dreadful 
death  that  must  come  if  we  do  not  seek  God. 

And  so,  assuredly,  this  must  be  what  is  meant  by 
the  work  of  Christ  in  reconciling  man  to  God,  His 
making  peace  between  man  and  God.  If  He  did 
this,  if  by  His  life  and  death  He  made  it  more  possi- 
ble, not  for  mankind  in  the  aggregate,  but  for  every 
man,  for  you  and  me,  to  enter  into  such  sympathy 


12  SEEKING  LIFE 

with  God,  and  so  understand  and  work  with  Him 
that  our  souls  should  be  filled  with  His  life, — then 
is  not  His  spiritual  mediatorship  clear?  As  plainly 
as  if  I  saw  Him  standing  there,  a  mighty  Figure  with 
one  hand  taking  glowing  motives  and  infinite  am- 
bitions like  burning  coals  off  the  altar  that  stands 
before  God's  throne,  and  with  the  other  touching 
those  coals  to  the  lips  of  a  man  and  sending  their 
power  into  his  heart, — so  plainly  stands  Jesus  Christ 
between  man  and  God;  not  separating  them,  but 
bringing  them  close  together;  interpreting  God  to 
man,  that  so  man  may  be  filled  with  God. 

What  does  Mary  Magdalen  know  about  God? 
What  does  she  care  about  the  way  He  works?  But 
Jesus  Christ  comes,  and  see  how  merciful  He  is,  how 
true,  how  pure!  Burning  in  every  act  He  does,  she 
sees  one  great  desire,  one  hunger  after  holiness  for 
Himself  and  for  His  brethren.  She  sees  that  and 
understands  it ;  she  is  taken  possession  of  by  it. 
And  then  Jesus  just  turns  to  her  and  says:  "That 
is  God.  'He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father.'  Let  that  new  craving  grow;  seek  Him 
more  and  more  earnestly,  and  more  and  more  you 
shall  be  purified.  His  new  life  in  you  shall  cast 
your  old  life  out. ' '  What  a  mediatorship  was  there ! 
And  when  you  cannot  find  God,  and  the  Saviour 
shows  Him  to  you;  when  you  cannot  tell  which 
way  the  Father  is  walking,  and  the  Son  comes  and 
points  Him  out  to  you  and  says,  "There!  "  so  that 
you  can  run  after  Him  with  every  perception  of 
duty  just  as  clear  as  sunlight, — then  Christ  is  your 
Mediator. 


SEEKING  LIFE  13 

The  perfect  illustration  of  our  text  is  in  the  life  of 
Jesus  Himself.  He  sought  God,  and  He  lived.  We 
must  know  far  more  than  we  do  of  the  mysterious 
separation  which  the  Incarnation  brought  between 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  before  we  can  understand 
what  it  was  for  the  Son  to  "seek  "  the  Father;  but 
all  through  the  Gospels  there  is  something  to  which 
we  cannot  give  any  other  name.  Jesus  is  seeking 
God,  reaching  after  complete  sympathy,  under- 
standing the  eternal  purposes  and  rejoicing  to  work 
with  them,  coming  near  to  His  Father,  and  getting 
from  that  seeking  all  the  wonderful,  unceasing, 
beautiful  inflow  of  life  that  filled  His  whole  career. 
"My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work,"  was 
His  story  of  the  whole. 

More  important  than  all  our  attempts  to  define 
the  relations  of  the  Eternal  Son  and  the  Eternal 
Father,  I  think,  it  is  to  apprehend  this  perfect  one- 
ness of  their  thoughts  and  plans,  which  made  all  the 
life  of  the  Father  the  life  of  the  Son,  too.  Some- 
times this  seeking  of  God  by  Jesus  takes  a  special 
utterance.  Christ  spends  the  whole  night  on  a 
mountain,  or  by  the  passover  table,  or  from  the 
cross  prays  God  to  make  His  way  more  clear  and 
show  Himself  to  Him  more  perfectly.  They  are 
most  touching  utterances,  but  even  in  them  we 
hardly  find  such  an  impression  as  gathers  in  us  from 
frequent  reading  of  the  Gospels — that  Christ  was 
always  pressing  His  life  closer  to  God's  life,  finding 
out  more  and  more  what  were  God's  purposes,  giv- 
ing Himself  to  those  purposes  more  and  more  com- 
pletely, and  so  more  and  more  deeply  living  by 


14  SEEKING  LIFE 

God.  It  comes  from  many  little  intimations,  but  it 
leaves  with  us  the  perfect  picture  of  a  soul  always 
in  deepening  sympathy  with  God,  and  so  always 
more  and  more  thoroughly  alive,  but  never  so  alive 
as  when  the  death  of  the  body  set  it  free  for  perfect 
union  with  Divinity. 

Have  we  not  then  come  to  something  clear  about 
this  whole  command,  or  let  us  better  call  it  this  in- 
vitation of  God?  God  is  the  Father  and  Governor 
of  life.  If  through  a  childlike  love  and  obedience 
we  enter  into  His  sympathy,  and  catch  His  mean- 
ings, and  are  helping  in  any  humble  way  towards 
His  results;  then  our  best  powers  of  life  come  forth 
and  do  their  work,  and  we  genuinely  live.  All  this 
is  warmed  into  a  glorious  and  inspiring  promise  as 
God  calls  to  us,  "Seek  ye  me,  and  live." 

There  are  a  few  simple  inferences  to  be  drawn 
from  all  this,  about  the  character  of  the  Christian 
life  which,  I  hope,  may  be  of  use  to  some.  The 
first  is,  that  the  Christian  life  will  be  a  gradual 
thing,  and  that  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised  if  it  is 
slow.  That  very  word,  "seek" — think  how  it 
sounds.  There  is  no  suddenness  about  it.  It  does 
not  describe  a  leap  which  carries  one  instantly  from 
the  ground  below  to  the  battlements  above ;  it  has 
a  sound  of  perseverance,  it  makes  us  think  of  men 
deep  underground  digging  for  treasures,  or  of  ships 
out  at  sea  beating  week  after  week  towards  their 
harbor,  or  of  students  growing  gray  over  their  books 
in  tracing  the  long  obscure  lines  that  lead  toward 
the  truth.     Certainly  it  has  no  promise  of  complete, 


SEEKING  LIFE  15 

immediate  attainment.  And  there  are  many  of  us, 
and  many  passages  in  the  experience  of  all  of  us, 
when,  conscious  of  the  gradualness  of  our  new  life, 
earnestly  resolved  to  persevere  unto  the  end, — nay, 
meeting  encouragement  along  the  way  and  humbly 
certain  that  God  is  showing  Himself  to  us  more  and 
more,  but  still  wondering  why  it  is  so  slow,  missing 
the  sudden  leap  to  peace  and  perfectness  which,  it 
may  be,  we  expected, —  at  such  times  that  word 
"seek"  falls  on  us  like  a  benediction  with  its  pro- 
phecy of  gradualness,  its  encouragement  to  perse- 
verance, and  its  promise  of  success.  If  it  is  the 
benediction  that  we  need,  let  us  take  it  to-day ! 

Another  inference  will  be  that  we  shall  find  the 
tests  and  satisfactions  of  our  service  of  God  in  our 
common  experiences,  in  the  deepening  of  our  most 
common  days.  The  life  that  is  to  be  given  to  us  is 
no  supernal  thing  that  cannot  be  recognised  except 
in  the  new  light  of  another  world.  It  is  the  bring- 
ing out  of  these  familiar  powers,  the  endowment  of 
our  common  relationships  with  profoundness  and 
sanctity.  If  you  seek  God,  then,  what  may  you 
expect?  First  of  all,  most  of  all,  that  the  simplest 
things  which  have  seemed  shallow  to  you  will  grow 
deep  and  sacred.  It  is  like  taking  a  northern  seed 
down  into  the  tropics;  what  does  it  mean  to  it? 
You  plant  it  there,  and  in  that  richer  ground,  under 
that  gorgeous  sun,  see  how  it  grows  into  a  luxuriance 
that  was  hardly  hinted  by  the  meagreness  of  the 
fruitage  which  it  yielded  on  the  rocky,  windy  New 
England  hillside.  Or,  it  is  like  stooping  and  lifting 
under  water  a  weight,  with  all  the  water's  buoyancy 


i6  SEEKING   LIFE 

to  help  you.  You  have  been  trying  to  do  your 
work  as  father,  mother,  brother,  sister,  schoolboy, 
clerk,  merchant,  citizen,  from  lower  motives,  from 
self-interest  or  mere  good-nature.  But  if  you  begin 
to  seek  God  through  Christ,  you  throw  your  life  into 
His  life  and  all  these  things  mean  more  to  you  ;  they 
change  their  look  and  are  more  sacred.  The  drudgery 
and  tiresomeness  drop  out  of  them.  They  are  His 
service.  As  different  as  an  orange-tree  struggling 
for  life  here  and  getting  to  nothing  after  all  but 
poor  green  fruit,  and  an  orange-tree  under  its  own 
southern  sky,  is  the  duty  of  home-life  done  for  one's 
own  self,  and  that  done  for  God. 

Ah !  it  is  good  to  look  far  off  and  see  the  heaven 
where  we  are  to  live  some  day,  to  catch  the  vision 
of  its  golden  pinnacles  and  hear  some  strain  of  its 
music  wafted  to  us  from  far  away;  but  it  is  better 
still  to  see  this  present  made  glorious  by  present 
grace,  to  find  these  streets  of  duty  turned  to  gold, 
and  these  words  of  thanksgiving  setting  themselves 
to  music.  That  is  a  surer  witness  still  that  we  are 
God's. 

Another  power  of  this  invitation  will  be  the  motive 
it  will  give  you  to  get  rid  of  sin.  The  reason  why 
men  do  not  think  their  sins  are  very  bad  is,  that 
they  are  not  trying  to  be  very  good.  But  if  you 
are  really  trying  to  be  like  God,  then  everything 
that  keeps  you  from  Him  will  declare  its  wickedness. 
That  is  the  way,  poor  trifler,  to  make  your  trifling 
show  its  sinfulness!  Do  not  sit  contemplating  your 
own  poor  foolish  actions,  your  self-indulgences,  your 
wastings  and  murderings  of  time,  saying  of  each  of 


SEEKING  LIFE  17 

them,  "There  is  no  harm  in  this,  or  this,  or  this." 
Look  away  from  them  ;  look  at  God.  Gaze  till  your 
soul  is  full  upon  the  glory  of  His  nature  and  His 
life.  Then  take  in  the  idea  that  you  have  some  part 
of  His  nature,  and  He  has  called  you  to  share  His 
life.  Realize  that  it  is  possible  for  you  to  under- 
stand Him,  and  to  work  for  what  He  is  working  for. 
Think  what  your  life  would  be  if  you  did  that.  Fill 
your  soul  with  such  a  prospect ;  then  turn  back  sud- 
denly and  see  the  idleness,  the  dissipation,  the  mis- 
erable self-indulgence,  which  are  keeping  you  from 
living  that  life;  and  then  ask  yourself  if  there 
is  no  harm  in  it,  ask  yourself  if  it  is  not  wicked. 
There  is  the  place  for  you  to  see  your  sin,  against 
what  your  sin  hinders.  Perhaps  that  also  is  the 
way  for  you  to  hate  your  sin,  and  conquer  it  and 
escape  from  its  slavery  forever. 

No  one  can  doubt  what  is  the  true  time  for  this 
seeking  of  God.  It  may  come  at  the  very  end  of 
life.  Just  when  the  stream  is  almost  dry,  when, 
having  run  for  years  over  the  sandy  ground  of 
selfishness,  it  has  only  a  few  drops  left  of  vital  will, 
those  few  drops,  we  doubt  not,  may  be  taken  up 
and  poured  into  the  great  current  of  God's  life. 
And  that  great  current  will  not  cast  them  out ;  it 
will  treasure  them,  no  doubt,  and  carry  them  on  to 
some  success.  The  dying  man  may  be  swept  into 
the  stream  of  God,  and  just  as  he  dies  begin  to  live. 
Of  that  we  feel  sure.  We  love  to  think  of  what  the 
other  world  may  have  in  store  for  such  lives  as 
the   penitent   thief's, — lives  whose   dying  was   the 


i8  SEEKING   LIFE 

beginning  of  their  living.  But  we  never  think  of 
such  lives  as  more  than  exceptions.  They  are  poor 
makeshifts  after  all.  It  is  for  such  as  you,  my  dear 
friends,  young  men  and  women  with  a  full,  fresh 
life  to  give,  that  giving  the  life  to  God  really  means 
something  great  and  beautiful. 

Think  what  it  means.  To  take  all  these  powers 
that  are  just  opened  or  just  opening,  and  say:  "All 
these  shall  be  used  for  doing  not  what  I  want,  but 
what  God  wants.  If  my  wants  and  His  wants  dis- 
agree, I  will  defeat  myself  to  serve  Him  until,  as  I 
grow  like  Him,  my  wants  and  His  wants  come  to  be 
the  same,  and  thenceforth  I  shall  serve  myself  in 
serving  Him.  This  I  will  do  because  He  is  my 
Father,  and  has  shown  me  His  love  by  Jesus  Christ, 
my  Lord." 

O  my  dear  friends,  that  is  Salvation.  That  is  to 
be  saved — to  give  the  life  while  it  is  rich  and  vigorous 
and  young  to  God.  Then  it  need  not  run  weak  and 
shallow  at  first,  and  only  at  last  be  refreshed  ;  it  may 
grow  stronger  and  deeper  all  the  way  from  the  be- 
ginning, flowing  in  the  ever-deepening  channels  of 
His  love  here,  until  it  is  received  into  the  ocean  of 
His  love  hereafter. 


II. 

THE   CHILD'S   LEADERSHIP. 

"And  a  little  child  shall  lead  them." — Isaiah  xi.  6. 

These  words  are  part  of  the  prophecy  of  millennial 
peace.  Under  the  rod  which  is  to  come  out  of  the 
stem  of  Jesse  and  the  branch  that  is  to  grow  out  of 
his  roots,  "the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and 
the  leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the  kid,  and  the  calf 
and  the  young  lion  and  the  fatling  together;  and  a 
little  child  shall  lead  them."  It  is  to  be  a  peace 
under  the  control  of  the  gentlest  and  most  benignant 
of  human  powers.  It  is  to  be  man  in  his  simplest, 
his  least  elaborate,  his  most  unsophisticated  exist- 
ence; man  not  artificial  and  complicated,  but  man 
in  his  intrinsic  humanness;  man  with  those  principles 
and  impulses  that  belong  to  his  humanity ;  man  in 
the  form  of  a  little  child,  that  is  to  be  the  leader 
and  harmonizer  of  the  world. 

It  is  with  this  idea  that  we  will  consider  the  text. 
We  need  not  cling  too  closely  to  the  literal  words 
and  circumstances.  The  leadership  of  the  little 
child,  which  is  to  be  the  millennial  condition,  may 
represent  for  us  the  dominion  of  those  primary  and 
fundamental  impulses,  those  simplest  principles  and 
powers  of  life,  to  which  men  are  often  so  unwilling 

19 


20  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

to  submit;  but  in  submission  to  which  all  the  best 
life  comes,  in  submission  to  which  alone  the  com- 
plete life  of  man  can  ever  come.  I  want  to  plead 
for  the  power  of  the  primary  and  simple  emotions, 
and  to  try  to  show  how  they  lead  up  to  the  highest 
and  most  religious  life.  As  society  becomes  com- 
plicated, as  ideas  become  subtle  and  refined,  there 
is  always  a  tendency  to  abjure  the  simplest  masters, 
and  to  establish  other  standards  which  are  artificial. 
Here  is  really  the  test  of  the  difference  between 
the  truly  and  the  falsely  cultivated  man.  The  truly 
cultivated  man  has  had  the  first  healthy  instincts  of 
humanity  developed  and  enriched  by  all  his  culture, 
but  not  altered  in  their  character,  made,  on  the  con- 
trary, all  the  more  truly  themselves  as  their  charac- 
ter has  been  brought  out.  Such  primary  emotions 
as  the  love  of  family,  the  love  of  country,  the  love 
of  fellow-man,  the  love  of  God — the  domestic,  the 
patriotic,  the  philanthropic,  the  religious  emotions 
— have  been  purified  and  steadied  and  deepened  and 
strengthened  by  his  culture.  They  are  stronger  in 
him  than  they  were  in  the  savage.  The  man  of 
false  culture  has  grown  ashamed  of  these  primary 
emotions.  He  tries  to  make  himself  and  other  men 
believe  that  he  does  not  feel  them,  that  he  has 
passed  beyond  them.  A  citizen  of  the  world,  pa- 
triotism has  for  him  no  meaning.  A  student  of 
human  nature  and  its  weaknesses,  any  admiration 
or  love  for  such  a  creature  as  man  is  has  become  a 
folly  impossible  for  him.  Having  seen  the  world's 
ingratitude,  the  first  impulse  of  man  to  labor  for  his 
fellow-man  has  lost  its  power  over  him.     Plenty  of 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  21 

this  false  culture,  this  bad  result  of  thought,  of  ex- 
perience of  life,  there  is  everywhere  around  us.  But 
wherever  it  exists,  it  is  a  blight.  The  men  who  are 
in  its  power  feel  the  blight  it  brings.  There  is  no 
millennium,  no  final  perfection  of  humanity  conceiv- 
able, except  in  the  enthronement  of  the  simplest 
and  healthiest  instincts  and  impulses  of  human  life, 
purified  and  developed,  but  made  more  themselves 
by  every  culture  that  has  come  to  them,  no  final 
peace  or  full  attainment  for  men,  until,  in  this  sense, 
"a.  little  child  shall  lead  them." 

Let  us  take  a  few  of  these  first  principles  and  see 
how  essential  their  dominion  is,  and  to  what  dangers 
it  becomes  exposed  with  the  elaboration  of  man's 
life.  And  first,  if  you  please,  take  the  principle  of 
confidence,  or  cordial  and  generous  trust  of  man  in 
man.  Every  reasonable  man  has  some  general  con- 
ception, more  or  less  clearly  realized,  about  the 
humanity  of  which  he  is  a  part.  He  either  holds 
that  mankind  is  trustworthy,  with  frequent  flagrant 
exceptions,  of  falseness  and  deceit ;  or  else  he  holds 
that  mankind  is  base  and  deceitful,  with  the  occa- 
sional intrusion  of  an  upright  and  honest  man. 
How  clear  it  is  that  according  to  which  idea  of 
humanity  he  holds  will  be  every  man's  constant 
attitude  towards  his  fellow-men.  If  he  holds  the 
first  idea,  he  will  be  wisely  trustful ;  he  will  feel  that 
the  safest  attitude  towards  men  is  confidence,  com- 
bined with  such  a  reasonable  v/atchfulness  as  shall 
keep  him  from  being  a  foolish  and  easy  dupe.  If 
he  holds  the  other  idea,  he  is  suspicious,  he  dis- 
trusts everybody  at  the  first   meeting.      The  first 


22  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

presumption  is  that  every  man  is  bad.  He  dis- 
parages humanity.  Only  the  longest  and  most  care- 
ful scrutiny  will  let  him  believe  that  any  best-seeming 
man  is  an  exception  to  the  general  depravity,  and 
is  to  be  trusted  and  esteemed. 

Who  of  us  does  not  know  the  different  attitudes 
of  these  two  men  towards  humanity?  The  first  is 
the  attitude  of  youth.  The  second  is  the  attitude 
of  age.  Not  that  they  always  belong  with  these 
different  periods  of  life.  There  are  plenty  of  young 
people — especially,  it  sometimes  seems,  in  these  days 
of  ours,  though  that  is  hard  to  judge — plenty  of 
young  people  who  have  or  who  affect  to  have  the 
old  men's  spirit,  who  play  the  cynic,  who  sneer  at 
and  distrust  humanity.  And  there  are  old  men  who 
believe  in  man,  whose  long  experience,  while  it  has 
made  them  watchful  and  not  easily  deceived,  has 
only  strengthened  the  belief  with  which  their  life 
began,  that  man  is  worthy  of  respect  and  honor, 
and  that  universal  trust,  if  one  had  to  choose  be- 
tween the  two,  is  a  safer  attitude  than  universal 
disbelief.  So  there  are  always  old  young  men  and 
young  old  men ;  and  yet  it  is  in  general  true  that 
skepticism  about  man  is  unnatural  for  youth,  and 
that  trust  in  man  is  a  special  and  peculiar  honor  in 
old  age.  Life  frets  and  wears  and  worries  it  away 
in  hosts  of  men,  and  yet  what  would  the  world  be 
without  it?  What  leader  to  any  good  result  did  the 
world  ever  have  who  was  not  rich  in  it? 

Easy  enough  it  is  to  misrepresent  and  caricature 
such  trust  as  blind,  silly  optimism ;  easy  enough  to 
picture  it  as  if  it  were  an  abdication  of  all  true  dis- 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  23 

crimination  and  intellectual  responsibility.  Easy 
enough,  also,  it  would  be  to  show  that  it  is  nothing 
of  the  kind.  But  now  I  only  ask  you  to  remember 
that  practically  no  man  has  largely  led  or  ruled  the 
world  without  it.  Christ  Jesus  had  it  perfectly. 
How  gloriously  He  trusted  men!  The  fervor  of 
His  terrible  denunciations  of  the  wicked  gets  its 
vividness  from  the  background  against  which  it 
stands  of  honor  for  and  confidence  in  the  soul  of 
man.  And  the  whole  Bible,  with  its  large,  un- 
guarded, unsuspicious  utterance  of  God  to  man, 
laying  itself  open  to  a  thousand  misconceptions, 
always  trusting  itself  cordially  to  men's  wish  to 
understand  it  —  there  could  be  nothing  like  the 
Bible,  with  its  regal  influence,  to  illustrate  how  all 
true  leadership  of  men  has  for  its  first  principle  con- 
fidence in  the  men  it  tries  to  lead. 

Then  take  another  of  the  primary  principles  of 
human  life  and  see  how  simple  it  is,  and  how  essen- 
tial it  is  to  any  complete  and  powerful  humanity — 
the  principle  of  absolute  morality,  the  principle  that 
the  right  is  to  be  done  because,  simply  because  it 
is  the  right.  All  history  of  the  world  and  of  the  indi- 
vidual continually  shows  how  life,  as  it  grows  com- 
plicated, tends  to  get  away  from  the  simplicity  of 
that  principle,  and  shows  also  how,  just  so  far  as  it 
gets  away  from  it,  it  becomes  weak.  There  grows 
up,  in  elaborated  communities  and  in  elaborated 
men,  a  disposition  to  dwell  upon  the  advantages  of 
good  living,  rather  than  upon  its  intrinsic  goodness. 
"Honesty  is  right,"  says  the  child,  and  the  childlike 
community.     "Honesty   is  the  best  policy,"  says 


24  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

experience,  trying  with  laborious  ingenuity  to  dis- 
guise its  conscience  in  the  robes  of  selfishness.  The 
principle  itself  appears  too  simple,  too  young,  too 
freshly  out  of  the  soul.  Men  who  are  in  its  power, 
even,  do  not  dare  to  own  their  master  by  its  name. 
How  often  you  and  I  have  done  right  things  be- 
cause we  knew  they  were  right,  because  we  did 
not  dare  and  did  not  want  to  disobey  that  sim- 
ple, bare  authority  of  righteousness;  and  then  we 
have  made  up  for  our  own  souls  and  for  the  ears  of 
other  men  other  ingenious  reasons  for  doing  them 
that  did  not  sound  so  fresh  and  simple  and  un- 
sophisticated as  that  bare  reason  of  morality.  So  it 
has  come  to  this :  that  a  man  who,  in  a  mixed  com- 
pany of  practical  men,  debating  what  is  profitable 
and  what  will  pay,  says  quietly,  "We  must  do  this, 
whether  it  pays  or  not,  for  it  is  right,"  makes  a  stir 
run  through  the  company  as  if  a  breath  out  of  the 
fresh  open  heaven  blew  in  through  the  suddenly 
opened  window  of  a  close  and  overheated  room. 

Let  me  name  yet  another  principle,  the  power  of 
which  is  the  strongest  that  our  human  nature  can 
submit  to,  and  yet  the  dominion  of  which  is  con- 
stantly pushed  out  of  sight  as  men  grow  more  and 
more  complicated  in  their  living  and  thinking.  I 
mean  the  principle  of  religion.  Indeed,  the  whole 
case,  as  concerns  religion,  is  very  strange  indeed 
when  we  think  about  it.  That  men  should  be 
wholly  irreligious  is  conceivable;  that,  counting 
themselves  completely  creatures  of  this  brown  earth 
on  which  they  live,  they  should  go  on  with  neither 
hope,  nor  fear,  nor  care,  nor  love  which  did  not  find 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  25 

its  source  and  satisfaction  here — I  do  not  say  that 
this  is  possible,  but  it  is  perfectly  conceivable:  we 
can  picture  such  a  race  crawling  over  the  mountains 
and  the  fields  of  earth,  like  moles  or  lizards  taking 
the  color  of  the  ground  they  crawled  on.  And 
then,  we  can  conceive  of  just  the  opposite,  of  a  re- 
ligion frankly  and  simply  acknowledged,  set  openly 
on  the  throne  over  every  act,  for  every  man  to  see ; 
of  a  relation  to  an  unseen  power  perfectly  accepted 
and  continually  referred  to,  so  that  the  man  goes 
through  life  looking  up,  and  with  his  conversation 
in  the  heavens. 

Both  of  these  conditions  are  conceivable;  but  an- 
other condition  would  be  unconceivable  if  we  did 
not  see  it  constantly :  a  man  religious  and  yet  hiding 
his  religion  even  from  himself,  full  of  the  fears  and 
hopes,  the  loves  and  hates,  that  belong  to  the  spirit- 
ual world,  and  yet  all  the  time  trying  to  make  him- 
self believe,  and  to  make  other  men  believe,  that  it 
is  here  upon  the  earth  that  he  finds  his  motives  and 
his  standards;  knowing  of  God  by  some  pervasive 
witness  of  Him  which  he  finds  spread  all  through 
his  life,  and  yet  never  mentioning  His  name  aloud, 
never  frankly  referring  life  to  Him  in  whose  Hands, 
if  He  exists  at  all,  the  reins  of  all  life  must  imme- 
diately be  held. 

I  said  that  such  a  man  would  be  incredible  if  we 
did  not  see  him  every  day;  and  tell  me,  do  we  not 
see  him?  What  is  the  condition  of  nine  men  out 
of  ten,  whom  you  meet  on  the  street  or  in  society? 
They  are  not  unbelievers,  surely.  They  know  of 
God;    they  think  of  Him;   and  yet,  what  are  the 


26  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

conscious  motives  by  which  they  rule  their  lives? 
Are  they  God's  will  and  God's  standards?  Do  they 
ever  take  their  lives  up  and  frankly  give  them  over 
as  a  whole  to  Him?  Have  they  not  surrounded 
and  swathed  religion  with  secondary  explanations, 
saying  to  themselves  that  it  cultivates  beauty,  that 
it  is  good  for  social  order,  that  it  brings  out  parts 
of  man's  nature  which  would  not  otherwise  be  de- 
veloped? Never  once,  in  all  their  lives,  letting  their 
souls  go  simply,  freely,  spontaneously,  lovingly,  as 
the  bird  goes  to  the  nest,  as  the  child  goes  to  the 
mother;  and  being  religious,  being  Christian,  out  of 
mere  love  and  fear  of  God  and  Christ !  The  religion 
of  a  grown  Christian  man,  or  of  an  old  Christian 
race,  so  loses  simplicity  and  hides  its  life-principle 
under  some  disguise! 

These  are  the  principles  whose  dominion  over 
mankind  must  be  restored  in  its  simplicity  and 
majesty,  before  mankind  can  come  to  its  millennial 
completeness;  whose  dominion  over  any  man  must 
be  established  before  his  life  can  become  a  true  part 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  principle  of  confidence 
in  man,  the  principle  of  absolute  morality,  the  prin- 
ciple of  direct  and  impulsive  religion ; — was  I  not 
right  when  I  said  of  these  principles  that  the  time 
of  their  simple,  calm,  unquestioned  reign  over  the 
lives  of  men  would  be  fitly  described  as  the  time 
when  "A  little  child  shall  lead  them"? 

How  like  a  child  a  great  principle  is  as  it  lives  here 
in  our  world !  It  walks  the  earth  with  feet  so  soft 
that  they  are  always  being  wounded,  and  yet  so 
strong,  with  such  a  virtue  in  them,  that  the  ground 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  27 

they  tread  on  changes  and  grows  rich  with  blossoms 
under  them.  Like  a  child,  a  great  simple  principle 
always  impresses  us  as  being  just  fresh  from  God, 
and  as  having  yet  but  imperfectly  put  on  our  human 
flesh.  It  has  a  child's  weakness  and  a  child's 
strength.  It  commands  an  influence  in  which  there 
is  always  a  mixture  of  pity.  It  is  in  constant  danger 
of  corruption,  and  yet  we  think  of  it  as  gifted  with 
an  almost  divine  power  of  taking  care  of  itself,  and 
keeping  itself  pure.  It  makes  men  obey  it  as  if  they 
were  its  slaves ;  and  yet  they  who  obey  it  patronize 
it  as  if  it  were  under  their  protection,  and  could  not 
live  except  for  them.  It  demands  what  seem  the 
most  unreasonable  things,  and  it  appears  to  gain  the 
things  it  asks  by  very  virtue  of  their  unreasonable- 
ness, or,  at  any  rate,  by  an  authority  which  is  above 
reason.  A  great  principle,  like  a  child,  is  frank  and 
unskilful,  yet  does  with  its  blunt  weapons  what  no 
sharpest  and  best  tempered  skill  could  do.  It  is 
abused,  imposed  upon,  misunderstood,  yet  buoy- 
antly rises  in  a  self-confidence  which  is  all  the  more 
complete  because  it  is  unconscious,  and  has  its  way 
at  last.  Appealing  to  men  by  its  very  lack  of  power 
to  enforce  its  appeal  by  arms,  creeping  into  their 
love,  finding  their  noblest  spots  and  their  most 
pliant  moods  with  an  unerring  instinct,  harboring 
no  grudges,  growing  angry  at  no  slights,  knowing 
intuitively  where  it  will  be  welcome,  sacrificing 
nothing  to  its  dignity,  yet  keeping  a  sacredness  be- 
fore which  rude  men  uncover  their  heads,  perfectly 
clear  and  palpable,  yet  always  wrapped  in  its  mys- 
tery ;  so,  with  its  wise,  kind,  true,  unfearing  eyes, 


28  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

and  its  hands  grasping  the  threads  of  silk  that  hold 
them  fast,  one  of  the  great,  simple,  everlasting  prin- 
ciples goes  before  a  host  of  men,  and  leads  them 
like  a  little  child. 

We  need  to  realize  and  to  believe  that  it  is  by  the 
enthronement  of  those  first  great,  simple,  childlike 
principles  that  the  world  is  to  be  saved.  Men  will 
learn  more  and  more  deep  and  subtle  and  compli- 
cated things,  as  years  go  on,  about  the  true  relations 
between  man  and  man ;  but  the  great  first  thing  that 
they  must  learn  is,  that  man  is  by  his  very  nature 
worthy  of  men's  confidence  and  honor,  that  sin  and 
untrustworthiness  are  intruders  and  exceptions  to 
the  fundamental  principle  of  life.  Men  will  learn  to 
hear  all  the  world  keeping  tune  to  the  central  har- 
mony of  righteousness;  but  the  Gospel  that  they 
need  must  be  in  that  central  harmony  itself,  in  the 
profounder  and  profounder  sense  that  the  right  is 
to  be  done  because  it  is  the  right,  growing  ever  into 
beauty  and  power  in  their  hearts.  And  it  is  not  the 
nicety  of  religious  speculation,  it  is  not  the  refine- 
ment of  religious  thought,  that  is  to  be  the  great 
blessing  of  the  spiritual  days  to  come.  It  is  the 
simple  ripening  into  richer  and  richer  power  of  the 
great,  strong,  tender  conviction  of  the  Love  of  God, 
with  all  the  majestic  authority  which  that  conviction 
brings.  In  these  great,  broad,  everlasting  principles 
lies  the  world's  hope  and  the  hope  of  every  man. 
These  are  the  true  kings  of  the  human  soul.  By 
the  growth  of  their  power  over  you — by  that,  and 
that  only — have  you  any  right  to  judge  the  progress 
of  your  life. 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  29 

Yet  it  is  just  these  kings  of  human  life  that  men 
disown.  They  will  not  mention  them.  They  will 
give  almost  any  other  reason  for  an  act  of  theirs, 
except  the  simple  and  generous  one  that  they  owe 
it  to  their  fellow-men,  or  that  it  is  right,  or  that  God 
calls  on  them  to  do  it.  What  is  the  reason  of  such 
a  strange  reluctance? — a  reluctance,  remember,  that 
often  goes  along  with  a  real  inward  loyalty  to  the 
Master  whom  the  lips  refuse  to  name. 

Two  or  three  reasons  may  be  given.  The  first,  I 
think,  is  the  liability  of  these  first  principles  of  life 
to  be  counterfeited  and  pretended,  and  the  difficulty 
of  detecting  the  pretence  from  the  reality.  One 
great  reason  why  men  conceal,  both  from  themselves 
and  from  each  other,  the  high  sentiments  which 
often  are  the  real  ground  of  their  action,  is  that 
dread  to  be  or  to  be  thought  sentimental.  Senti- 
ment is  childlike;  sentimentality  is  childish.  The 
childlike  is  always  in  danger  of  the  childish.  Senti- 
mentality lurks  behind  sentiment,  and  men  will 
rather  be  thought  to  live  their  lives  on  low  and 
selfish  grounds  than  to  incur  the  shame  that  comes 
when,  claiming  the  high  motive  by  which  they  do 
really  try  to  live,  they  are  met  with  cool,  contemp- 
tuous distrust  and  lack  of  sympathy.  Say,  "I  did 
this  thing  because  I  thought  it  would  be  profitable"  ; 
and  men  will  believe  you  and  exclaim,  "How  frank 
and  honest!  "  Say,  "I  did  it  because  I  thought  it 
was  God's  will,"  and  men  will  shrug  their  shoulders. 
In  the  first  answer  they  suspect  no  hypocrisy,  for  who 
would  counterfeit  a  pebble?  In  the  second  answer 
they  feel  almost  sure  of  it,  for  how  rare  perfectly 


30  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

pure  diamonds  are !  Therefore  it  is  that  there  is 
no  proof  in  this  world  of  a  man's  simple,  absolute, 
manifest  greatness  so  strong  as  his  ability  to  claim 
for  himself  frankly  the  highest  motives,  and  to  be 
believed.  Now  and  then  in  our  lives  we  have  met 
men  who  could  say  the  most  generous  and  lofty 
words,  claim  for  themselves  their  servantship  to 
principle  and  religion,  and  do  it  so  truly,  so  simply, 
so  plainly  as  the  accepted  fact  of  all  their  lives,  that 
all  men  believed  them  as  they  spoke,  and  were  im- 
pressed. No  man  dreamed  of  calling  it  hypocrisy, 
or  sentimentality,  or  cant.  To  that  degree  of  sim- 
ple greatness,  all  men  must  come  before  it  shall  be 
true  that  a  little  child  leads  them. 

Another  reason  why  men  will  not  allow  that  they 
are  ruled  by  first  principles,  by  the  primary  obliga- 
tions of  brotherhood,  morality,  and  religion,  seems 
to  be  that  these  reasons  are  too  democratic.  They 
run  down  too  low.  They  may  be  the  motives  of  all 
kinds  of  men.  They  may  be  the  powers  that  move 
the  sluggish  wheels  of  the  boor's  life.  The  sage's 
finer  machinery  must  answer  to  a  subtler  touch.  And 
so  we  hear  men  either  going  below  these  motives, 
and  talking  about  selfishness ;  or  trying  to  go  above 
them,  and  spinning  aesthetic  theories  of  life,  talking 
about  living  by  the  laws  and  impulses  of  "beauty." 
But  the  real  glory  of  these  great  fundamental  princi- 
ples is  just  here,  in  their  universal  range.  The  boor 
and  the  sage  may  both  be  religious,  and  that  is  the 
real  glory  of  religion.  The  great  fundamental  prin- 
ciples are  like  life  itself,  which  is  the  same  for  all 
men  and  yet  different  for  every  man.     That  which 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  31 

was  hardly  more  (though  really  something  more) 
than  an  instinct  in  the  lowest  man,  becomes  full  of 
consciousness,  purpose,  discrimination  in  the  highest 
man,  and  yet  it  is  the  same  thing  still. 

The  true  wish  of  the  growing  man  ought  to  be 
that  he  may  keep  his  share  in  the  impulses  that 
impel  the  simplest  man,  so  far  as  they  are  healthy 
and  genuinely  human ;  and  that,  within  these  im- 
pulses, he  may  advance  to  ever  new  perception  of 
their  richness  and  ever  deeper  experience  of  their 
strength.  It  is  what  Schiller  sings  of  man  and  the 
lower  creatures: 

"Seekest  thou  the  highest,  the  greatest?  Goto 
the  lily  to  teach  thee  what  it,  willingless,  is,  that 
thou  by  willing  must  be." 

It  is  the  ever  richer  entrance  of  intelligent  Will,  the 
ever  greater  deepening  of  obedience  to  a  principle 
by  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  principle,  that 
makes  the  true  growth  of  the  man  within  the  prin- 
ciple. A  true  principle  is  large  enough  for  the  man 
to  grow  within  it  eternally.  Within  it  our  eternal 
life  is  to  be  lived.  Not  by  abandoning  the  social 
life,  the  moral  life,  the  religious  life,  are  we  to  grow 
in  heaven.  But  yet  we  are  to  grow  there.  The  re- 
lations which  we  hold  to  our  fellow-men,  the  natural- 
ness of  duty,  the  dearness  of  God, — these  are  to  be 
the  subjects  of  our  endless  learning.  And  as  we 
learn  them  forever,  we  shall  feel  that  we  are  not 
outgrowing  and  losing,  but  only  unfolding  and  un- 
folding the  great  and  inexhaustible  authority  to 
which  we  gave  ourselves  in  the  true  but  half-blind 
consecration  of  this  imperfect  world. 


32  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

But,  most  of  all,  the  reason  why  the  great  primary 
principles  do  not  command  men  easily,  and  show 
themselves  men's  kings,  lies  in  their  impersonality. 
Men  obey  men.  The  power  of  an  abstraction,  how- 
ever true,  however  lofty,  is  weak  compared  with  the 
power  of  a  personal  master  who  comes  with  a  mani- 
fest right  to  be  obeyed.  And  even  where  obedience 
is  given  to  an  abstract  principle,  it  is  not  so  healthy 
and  complete  an  act  as  if  it  were  bestowed  upon  a 
personal  master  in  whom  that  principle  had  found 
embodiment.  It  is  almost  always  haunted  by  self- 
consciousness.  This  is  why,  as  we  see  so  often,  a 
bad  man  is  stronger  than  a  good  creed,  and  turns 
the  soul  that  thought  itself  most  settled  in  its  prin- 
ciples, away  from  its  belief  to  follow  him. 

This  is  also  why,  as  we  should  see  more  often  if 
we  expected  it  more  constantly,  a  good  man  is 
stronger  than  a  bad  creed,  and  a  true  life  will  re- 
claim and  will  hold  the  soul  that  false  arguments 
have  turned  astray.  Is  it  not  true  that  each  of  our 
characters  to-day  is  the  result,  not  to  any  consider- 
able degree  of  the  abstractions  we  have  believed,  of 
the  ideas  that  we  have  held,  but  of  the  human  em- 
bodiments of  principles,  the  personal  presences  of 
ideas  in  men  which  have  been  pressed  upon  our 
lives? 

Wonderful  and  beautiful  is  this  process  of  the 
gathering-in  of  the  light  and  power  of  a  principle 
into  the  effective  nature  of  a  person.  Mysteriously, 
like  the  gathering  of  light  into  a  star,  truth  gathers 
itself  into  a  man.  What  a  whole  community  has 
believed,  some  day,  lo !  it  has  taken  shape  and  walks 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  33 

the  streets.  Men  have  said  to  one  another,  "Hon- 
esty is  sacred;  we  all  ought  to  be  honest";  and 
some  day,  lo !  there  is  honesty  walking  in  the  guise 
of  a  man  among  them,  and  shaming  every  fraud, 
and  cheering  every  struggle  with  temptation,  as  it 
looks  at  them  out  of  human  eyes.  Men  have  said, 
"Purity  is  beautiful;  we  all  ought  to  be  pure"  ;  and 
some  day  that  light,  too,  gathers  itself  into  a  star. 
A  pure  man  shines  before  us,  and  lust  is  shamed, 
and  purity  is  inspired  wherever  his  feet  go ! 

Do  you  not  see  to  what  all  this  is  pointing?  Do 
you  not  recognize  where  it  was  that  all  this  struggle 
of  the  abstract  and  vague  to  set  itself  forth,  in  the 
clearness  and  power  of  personality,  attained  its  con- 
summation? Remember  the  Gospel  of  St.  John: 
"The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us 
full  of  grace  and  truth ;  and  we  beheld  his 
glory."  Grace  and  Truth  were  abroad  in  the  world, 
appealing  to  the  hearts  of  men,  claiming  the  hearts 
of  men  for  the  unseen  God  of  whom  they  were  the 
utterance.  At  last,  in  the  mystery  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, behold!  "the  Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us."  And  what  then? — "To  as  many  as  re- 
ceived him  to  them  gave  he  power  to  become  the 
sons  of  God." 

O  my  dear  friends,  if  only,  instead  of  reading 
these  words  as  if  they  were  a  riddle  to  hide  some 
bewildering  doctrine,  or  as  if  they  were  the  history 
of  some  great,  dead,  past  event, — if  we  could  read 
them  as  the  story  of  our  own  present  life,  as  the 
promise  of  the  way  in  which  the  principles  which 
we  reverence  and  love  and  try  to  obey  might  indeed 


34  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

become  our  masters !  The  principle  of  Human 
Brotherhood,  the  principle  of  Duty,  the  principle  of 
God — those  first  truths,  those  fundamental  impulses 
of  men,  how  shall  they  become  our  lords?  Only  by 
their  entering  into  a  Lordship  which  shall  seize  us 
and  hold  us  with  that  strong  warm  grasp  in  which 
personal  Love  lays  hold  of  personal  gratitude,  and 
the  splendor  of  personal  Holiness  lays  hold  upon 
an  answering  personal  admiration  and  invitation. 

Think  how  all  that  was  in  the  days  which  are  a 
perpetual  picture  of  all  the  days  of  Christ,  Christ 
walked  by  the  sea  of  Tiberias,  and  saw  the  fisher- 
men mending  their  nets, — and  He  called  to  them 
across  the  blue  water,  "Follow  me";  and  they 
started  and  followed  Him.  James  and  John,  leav- 
ing Zebedee  their  father  in  the  boat,  followed  Him. 
But  by  and  by  they  must  have  known  that,  in  Him, 
they  were  following  the  shadowy  and  splendid 
masters  whose  mastery  had  tempted  but  eluded  all 
their  youth.  They  were  learning  faith  in  man,  and 
love  for  righteousness,  and  loyalty  to  God,  as  they 
learned  Him.  They  were  attaining  these,  as  they 
attained  Him.  They  did  not  talk  of  these.  They 
talked  of  Him.  Their  eyes  were  fixed  on  Him. 
But  that  dominion  of  the  primary  and  essential 
masters  of  the  human  soul  which  they  had  longed 
for,  which  they  had  struggled  for,  became  a  true 
reality  to  them  as,  full  of  ever  deepening  love,  they 
followed  Jesus. 

Little  by  little  His  love  tightened  around  them. 
And  at  last  there  came  the  Cross.  He  died  for 
them.      For  their   help,   for  their  hope,   He  went 


THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP  35 

patiently  on  and  on,  and  at  last  the  Cross  completed 
everything.  Then  gratitude  and  admiration  over- 
whelmed and  gathered  them  into  the  depths  of  love 
past  all  escape.  As  a  shell  that  has  floated  on  the 
sea  at  last  fills  itself  with  the  sea,  and  sinks  into  the 
sea;  so  these  disciples'  lives,  which  had  floated  on 
the  bosom  of  Christ's  Love,  when  at  last  the  Cruci- 
fixion came,  filled  themselves  with  Christ's  Love  and 
sank  into  its  depths.  Thenceforward  they  must 
follow  Him. 

They  followed  Him  until  He  brought  them  to 
their  crosses.  They  followed  Him  across  the  dark 
river.  They  are  following  Him  to-day  in  some 
bright  fields  of  the  unknown  eternity.  But  wher- 
ever they  are  following  Him,  they  are  following  in 
Him  these  eternal  principles, — the  Love  of  Brethren, 
the  Love  of  Right,  the  Love  of  God.  We  lift  up 
the  eyes  of  our  faith,  and  far  away,  yet  very  near  to 
us — far  beyond  us,  yet  under  the  same  guidance  and 
on  the  same  road  where  we  may  walk  if  we  are 
humbly  Christ's — we  can  see  those  saints  of  old, 
those  fishermen  of  Galilee,  walking  still  in  the  foot- 
steps of  the  same  Master  that  they  followed  over 
their  native  hills  so  long  ago.  To  them  the  promises 
have  been  fulfilled :  A  little  child  is  leading  them. 
"They  follow  the  Lamb  whithersoever  he  goeth. " 

Is  that  the  Gospel?  Indeed  it  is!  All  that  the 
Saviour  does  for  us, — the  priceless  forgiveness  of 
our  sins,  the  opened  prospect  of  eternal  life, — it 
all  has  its  great,  one,  only  purpose,  that  by  the 
power  of  gratitude    we    may    be    bound    into    His 


36  THE  CHILD'S  LEADERSHIP 

service  and  made  to  follow  Him  with  an  un- 
questioning faith. 

You  say  proudly,  "I  mean  to  live  up  to  my  prin- 
ciples." That  is  well;  but  oh,  it  is  better  if  you 
can  say  humbly,  "I  pray  that  I  may  follow  Christ." 
In  Him  your  principles  walk  transfigured,  glorified 
before  you,  and  draw  you  "with  the  cords  of  a 
man. ' ' 

Men,  women,  little  children,  all  may  follow  Him. 
Through  our  separate  ways  of  light  or  darkness 
He  will  lead  us  all  until  He  brings  us  to  God,  in 
whom  we  shall  surely  find  ourselves. 


in. 

THE   NEARNESS   OF  GOD. 

"That  they  should  seek  the  Lord,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after 
him,  and  find  him,  though  he  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us," — 
Acts  xvii.  27. 

The  surprise  of  life  always  comes  in  finding  how 
we  have  missed  the  things  which  have  lain  nearest  to 
us ;  how  we  have  gone  far  away  to  seek  that  which 
was  close  by  our  side  all  the  time.  Men  who  live 
best  and  longest  are  apt  to  come,  as  the  result  of  all 
their  living,  to  the  conviction  that  life  is  not  only 
richer  but  simpler  than  it  seemed  to  them  at  first. 
Men  go  to  vast  labor  seeking  after  peace  and  happi- 
ness. It  seems  to  them  as  if  it  were  far  away  from 
them,  as  if  they  must  go  through  vast  and  strange 
regions  to  get  to  it.  They  must  pile  up  wealth, 
they  must  see  every  possible  danger  of  mishap 
guarded  against,  before  they  can  have  peace.  Upon 
how  many  old  men  has  it  come  with  a  strange  sur- 
prise, that  peace  could  come  to  rich  or  poor  only 
with  contentment ;  and  that  they  might  as  well 
have  been  content  at  the  very  beginning  as  at  the 
very  end  of  life.  They  have  made  a  long  journey 
for  their  treasure,  and  when  at  last  they  stoop 
to   pick  it    up,  lo !    it   is   shining   close   beside  the 

37 


38  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

footprint  which  they  left  when  they  set  out  to 
travel  in  a  circle. 

So  we  seek  to  know  our  fellow-men,  and  think 
that  the  knowledge  can  be  gained  only  by  long  and 
suspicious  experience  and  watchfulness  of  their  be- 
havior ;  but  all  the  while  the  real  power  of  knowl- 
edge is  sympathy,  and  many  a  child  has  that,  and 
knows  men  better  than  we  do  with  all  our  cautious- 
ness. And  so  we  plot,  and  lay  our  schemes,  and 
go  long  ways  about  to  make  men  like  us,  it  may  be 
to  be  famous,  when  their  liking  lies  right  at  our 
feet ;  to  be  ours  certainly  any  moment  when  we 
will  just  be  simple  and  true,  and  forget  ourselves, 
and  genuinely  care  for  other  men,  and  let  them  see 
that  we  care  for  them  in  frank  and  unaffected  ways. 
We  try  to  grow  powerful  by  parading  what  we  think 
that  we  can  do,  by  displaying  the  tools  of  our  power 
before  men,  by  showing  them  why  they  ought  to 
feel  our  influence.  Only  gradually  we  learn  that 
power  lies  as  close  to  us  as  work  lies,  that  no  man 
can  really  do  real  work  and  not  be  powerful. 

It  is  a  vague  sense  of  all  this,  I  think,  that  makes 
a  certain  confusion  and  perplexity  and  mystery  in 
life.  The  idea  that  there  is  much  more  near  us  than 
we  understand  or  know,  that  we  are  every  hour  on 
the  brink  of  doing  things  and  being  things  which 
yet  we  never  do  or  are, — this  is  what  gives  to  life  a 
large  part  of  its  restlessness,  and  also  a  large  part  of 
its  inspiration.  We  seem  to  ourselves,  sometimes, 
like  men  who  are  walking  in  the  dark  up  and  down  a 
great,  richly  furnished  house,  where  tools  for  every 
kind  of  work  and  supplies  for  every  want  are  lying 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  39 

on  every  hand.  We  find  rich  things,  we  taste  de- 
licious meats,  we  recognize  the  fitnesses  and  the 
care  that  have  provided  most  ingenious  comforts; 
but  all  the  while  we  are  not  sure  but  there  is  some- 
thing even  richer,  more  delicious,  more  ingenious, 
which  we  have  almost  touched  but  passed  by  in  the 
dark. 

There  comes  in  life  to  almost  all  men,  I  suppose, 
a  certain  sense  of  fumbling,  a  consciousness  of  this 
vague  living  in  the  dark.  And  out  of  it  there  come 
the  everlasting  and  universal  characteristics  of  hu- 
manity, which  are  in  all  men  of  every  age  and  every 
time,  which  belong  to  man  as  man,  —  the  ever  reap- 
pearing and  unquenched  hope,  the  sense  that  nothing 
is  quite  impossible,  the  discontent  with  any  settled 
conditions,  the  self-pity  and  pathos  with  which  men 
always  regard  their  own  lives  when  they  are  thought- 
ful, and  the  self-reproach  which  is  always  lying  in 
wait  just  under  the  surface  of  our  most  complacent 
vanity.  All  of  these — and  all  of  them  belong  so  to 
human  life  that  the  man  who  has  not  any  of  them 
is  an  exception — all  of  them  come  from  that  condi- 
tion in  which  men  vaguely  know  that  they  are  always 
missing  the  things  that  they  need  most,  that  close 
beside  them  are  most  precious  things  which  they 
are  brushing  with  their  robes,  which  they  are  touch- 
ing with  their  fingers,  but  which,  lying  in  the  dark, 
they  cannot  see. 

And  now  suppose  that  it  were  possible  for  any 
being,  standing  where  he  could  look  at  man,  apart 
from  him  and  yet  in  fullest  sympathy  with  him,  to 
watch   his    fumbling   with   a   sight    that   could  see 


40  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

through  the  darkness.  What  would  his  feeling  be 
about  this  humanity  that  he  saw  forever  missing 
the  helps  and  chances  that  it  needed,  missing  them 
often  only  by  a  finger's  breadth?  How  solemn  his 
sight  of  man  would  be !  Right  by  the  side  of  our 
thinking  race  to-day  lie  the  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries of  the  years  to  come.  This  seer,  to  whom 
the  darkness  is  no  darkness,  would  discern  them  all. 
He  has  always  seen  how  man  has  missed  the  nearest 
things.  He  saw  how  for  ages  the  inventions  which 
the  world  has  already  reached — the  quick-hearted 
steam,  the  eager,  trembling,  vocal  electricity,  the 
merciful  ether  that  almost  divinely  says,  "Be  still!  " 
to  pain, — how  all  these  lay  unfound  just  where  the 
hand  of  man  seemed  to  touch  them  a  hundred  times, 
and  then  wandered  on  unwittingly  to  play  with 
trifles.  He  saw  how  a  continent  lay  hid  for  ages 
from  the  eyes  of  men.  He  saw  how  hearts  came 
and  went  in  this  world,  always  just  touching  on, 
just  missing  of,  the  great  comforting  truths  of  a 
personal  immortality,  till  Christ  with  His  Gospel 
brought  it  to  light.  He  has  seen  how  single  souls 
have  gone  through  life  burdened,  distressed,  per- 
plexed, while  just  beside  them,  so  close  that  it 
seemed  as  if  they  could  not  step  an  inch  without 
seeing  it,  so  close  that  it  seemed  as  if  they  could 
not  move  without  finding  their  hot  and  tired  souls 
bathed  in  its  rich  waters,  flowed  the  comfortable 
faith  they  wanted,  the  river  of  the  Water  of  Life 
which  their  death  was  crying  out  for. 

What  must  be  the  feeling  of  such  a  being  about 
human  life?     Pity  and  awe.     A  blended   sense  of 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  41 

what  a  vast  endowment  man  has,  what  a  vast  thing 
it  is  to  be  a  man,  and  at  the  same  time  of  what  a 
terrible  thing  it  is  to  miss  so  much, — the  feeling 
with  which  even  the  weakest  child  of  Gaza  looks  at 
the  blind  giant  Sampson,  helplessly  feeling  for  the 
great  columns  of  the  house.  "O  Jerusalem,  Jeru- 
salem, how  often  I  would  have  gathered  thy  children, 
but  thou  wouldst  not" — Jesus,  the  Saviour,  was 
having  just  that  view  of  human  nature  when  He 
cried  out  so.  And  who  will  say  that  there  was 
not  a  reverence  for  Jerusalem  mixed  with  the  pity 
for  Jerusalem  in  the  Lord's  heart?  And  when  it  is 
not  Jerusalem,  but  you  or  I,  who  is  not  exalted  and 
solemnized  when  he  is  able  to  rise  up  and  believe 
that  there  is  not  merely  pity  for  the  sinner  who  can 
be  so  wicked,  but  reverence  for  the  child  of  God 
who  might  be  so  good,  blended  into  that  perfect 
unity  of  Saving  Love  with  which  Jesus  stoops  to 
lift  even  the  vilest  and  most  insignificant  of  us  out 
of  his  sin? 

And  now,  after  all  this,  let  us  come  to  our  text. 
St.  Paul  is  preaching  on  Mars  Hill  to  the  Athenians. 
We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  eloquence,  the  skill, 
the  tact  of  that  wonderful  discourse;  of  how  St. 
Paul,  with  exquisite  discrimination,  said  to  those 
men  of  Athens  just  the  right  thing  for  them.  That 
is  putting  it  too  low.  The  power  of  his  tact  was 
really  love.  He  felt  for  those  men,  and  so  he  said  to 
them  what  they  personally  needed.  And  he  was, 
as  regarded  them,  just  where  the  looker-on  whom  I 
was  picturing  is  with  regard  to  the  men  stumbling 
and  fumbling  in  the  darkness  of  which  I  spoke. 


42  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

Never  were  people  on  the  brink  of  so  many  of  the 
highest  things,  and  missed  them,  as  these  Athen- 
ians. They  felt  all  the  mystery,  the  mysterious 
suggestiveness  of  life.  They  built  their  altar  to  the 
unknown  God.  The  air  around  them  was  all  trem- 
ulous with  power.  They  were  always  on  the  brink 
of  faith,  without  believing ;  always  on  the  brink  of 
divine  charity,  yet  selfish ;  always  touched  by  the 
atmosphere  of  spirituality,  yet  with  their  feet  set 
upon  the  material  and  carnal.  Of  such  men  there 
were  two  views  to  be  taken  by  one  who  looked  in 
upon  their  darkness  from  a  higher  light.  Easy 
enough  it  is  to  be  contemptuous;  easy  enough  to 
cry  out  "Hypocrite!"  to  condemn  as  hopelessly 
frivolous  and  insincere  this  life  which  always  walked 
on  the  brink  of  earnestness,  and  yet  was  never 
earnest ;  to  condemn,  as  the  sweeping  critics  of  all 
modern  doubt  are  apt  to  do,  every  altar  to  the 
"Unknown  God  "as  if  those  who  had  built  it  cer- 
tainly cared  more  about  and  worshipped  more  the 
"unknown"  than  the  "God,"  delighted  more  in  His 
uncertainty  than  in  His  Divinity.  Easy  enough  it 
is  to  do  this,  but  possible,  at  least,  it  is  to  do  some- 
thing very  different  from  this,  possible  to  be  im- 
pressed as  St.  Paul  was  with  reverence  and  pity  that 
left  no  room  for  contempt,  reverence  for  the  men 
who  came  so  near  to  so  much,  and  pity  for  the  men 
who  missed  it  so  sadly.  Oh,  be  sure,  my  friends, 
that  whenever  you  see  a  poor  bewildered  thinker, 
or  a  puzzled  youth  feeling  about  vainly  for  his  work, 
his  place,  his  career  in  life,  there  are  those  two 
thoughts   for  you  to  have  about  them  both, — the 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  43 

thought  of  contempt  and  the  thought  of  reverence 
and  pity ;  and  be  sure  that  the  first  thought  is  mean 
and  unworthy  of  a  fellow-man,  and  that  the  second 
thought  is  the  thought  of  the  best  and  wisest  and 
divinest  men,  the  thought  of  St.  Paul  and  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

And  now,  what  makes  the  difference  between 
these  two  kinds  of  observation,  these  two  men  with 
their  different  sight  of  a  human  life?  It  is  not  hard 
to  see.  Is  it  not  simply  that  the  man  who  looks 
upon  his  brother's  puzzled  life  with  reverence  and 
pity  is  the  man  who  sees  God  there  behind  the  life 
which  he  is  looking  at?  The  man  who  looks  at  his 
brother's  restless  life  with  contempt,  is  the  man  who 
sees  no  God  there,  to  whom  the  everlasting  human 
restlessness  is  nothing  but  the  vain  and  aimless  toss- 
ing about  of  a  querulous  dissatisfaction.  If  there  is 
no  God  whose  life  and  presence,  dimly  felt,  is  mak- 
ing men  toss  and  complain,  then  their  tossing  and 
complaining  is  an  insignificant  and  a  contemptible 
thing.  It  would  be  better  if  they  could  be  calm  like 
the  beasts.  If  there  is  a  God  to  whom  they  belong, 
from  whom  the  thinnest  veil  separates  them ;  whom 
they  feel  through  the  veil,  though  they  cannot  see 
Him ;  whom  they  feel  through  the  veil  even  when 
they  do  not  know  that  it  is  He  whom  they  feel — 
then  their  restlessness,  their  feverish  hope,  their 
dreams  and  doubts,  become  solemn  and  significant, 
something  which  any  thoughtful  man  may  well  de- 
light to  study,  and  may  well  rejoice  if  he  can  at  all 
help  them  to  their  satisfaction. 

And  this  is  just  what  St.  Paul  tells  the  Athenians. 


44  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

He  says,  "You  are  restless  and  discontented.  You 
are  always  seeming  to  be  near  something  which  yet 
you  do  not  reach.  Your  feet  are  always  pressing 
the  brink  of  a  knowledge  which  you  never  come  to 
know.  You  are  always  half  aware  of  something 
which  you  never  see.  I  will  tell  you  what  it  means. 
Your  restlessness,  your  impatience,  your  discontent, 
however  petty  be  the  forms  it  takes,  is  solemn  and 
not  petty  to  me,  because  of  what  it  means.  It 
means  that  God  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  you." 
Oh,  what  a  revelation  that  was !  What  a  preach- 
ing that  was  that  day  on  Mars  Hill!  It  was  as  if 
one  came  to  a  blind  child,  sitting  in  a  room  where 
he  thought  himself  alone,  and  wondering  at  the 
restlessness  which  would  not  let  him  settle  down  to 
quiet  thought  and  work,  and  said  to  him,  "I  can 
tell  you  what  it  means.  You  are  not  alone  here 
though  you  think  you  are.  Your  father  is  here, 
though  you  cannot  see  him.  It  is  his  unseen  pres- 
ence that  haunts  you  and  disquiets  you.  All  these 
many  disturbances  which  your  mind  undergoes  are 
really  one  disturbance, — the  single  disturbance  of 
his  being  here.  It  is  simply  impossible  for  you  to 
sit  here  as  if  he  were  not  here.  The  only  peace  for 
you  is  to  know  and  own  his  presence,  to  rise  up  and 
go  to  him,  to  make  your  whole  thought  and  life 
centre  and  revolve  about  the  fact  that  he  certainly 
is  here,  to  quiet  your  disturbance  in  the  bosom  of 
that  presence,  known,  out  of  which,  unknown,  your 
disturbance  came." 

,-    And  that  is  what  Christianity  reveals.     What  St. 
f    Paul  said  to  the  men   of  Athens,   Christ  says  to 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  45 

everybody,  to  you  and  me  and  all  these  multitudes. 
He  comes  to  you,  and  says  it:  "You  are  restless, 
always  on  the  brink  of  something  which  you  never 
reach,  always  on  the  point  of  grasping  something 
which  eludes  you,  always  haunted  by  something 
which  makes  it  impossible  for  you  to  settle  down 
into  absolute  rest.  Behold,  I  tell  you  what  it 
means.  It  is  God  with  you.  It  is  Emmanuel. 
His  presence  it  is  that  will  not  let  you  be  at  peace. 
You  do  not  see  Him,  but  He  is  close  by  you.  You 
never  will  have  peace  until  you  do  see  Him  and 
come  to  Him  to  find  the  peace  which  He  will  not  let 
you  find  away  from  Him.  Come  unto  me,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest."  That  was  the  revelation  of  the 
Incarnation.  Listen,  how  across  all  the  centuries 
you  can  hear  the  Saviour  giving  that  revelation,  that 
interpretation  of  their  own  troubled  lives  to  multi- 
tudes; now  to  Nicodemus,  now  to  the  Samaritan 
woman,  now  to  Pontius  Pilate,  and  all  along,  every 
day,  to  His  disciples  by  what  they  saw  from  hour  to 
hour  of  His  peace  in  His  Father. 

Listen  again.  Hear  Christ  giving  the  same  reve- 
lation to-day;  and  ask  yourself  this:  "If  it  were 
true,  if  God  in  His  perfectness,  with  His  perfect 
standards  in  Himself,  with  His  perfect  hopes  for 
me,  God  in  His  complete  holiness  and  His  complete 
love, — if  He  were  here  close  to  me,  only  separated 
from  me  by  the  thin  veil  of  my  blindness,  would  it 
not  explain  everything  in  my  life?"  There  is  the 
everlasting  question,  my  dear  friends,  to  which  there 
is  only  one  answer.  What  else  can  explain  this 
mysterious,  bewildering,  fluttering,  hoping,  fearing, 


46  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

dreaming,  dreading,  waiting,  human  life, — what  but 
this,  which  is  the  Incarnation  truth,  that  God  from 
whom  this  life  came  is  always  close  to  it,  that  He  is 
always  doing  what  He  can  do  for  it,  even  when  men 
do  not  see  Him,  and  that  He  cannot  do  for  them 
all  His  love  would  do  only  because  of  the  veil  that 
hangs  between  Him  and  them?  "Not  far  from 
every  one  of  us!  " — there  is  the  secret  of  our  life — 
weak  and  wicked  because  we  will  not  live  with  God ; 
restless,  unable  to  be  at  peace  in  our  weakness  and 
wickedness,  because  God  is  not  far  from  us. 

But  it  is  time  for  us  to  take  this  idea  of  God  very 
near  us,  and  giving  Himself  to  all  of  us  just  as  fully 
as  we  will  receive  Him,  and  follow  it  out  more  in 
detail.  God  is  to  men  wisdom  and  comfort  and 
spiritual  salvation.  See  how  our  truth  applies  to 
each  of  these. 

I.  And  first  about  God's  wisdom.  I  can  conceive 
of  a  humanity  which,  up  to  the  limits  of  its  human 
powers,  should  understand  God.  No  cloud  should 
come  in  anywhere.  It  should  know  everything 
about  Him  which  it  was  within  the  range  of  its 
nature  to  comprehend.  Then  I  can  conceive  of  an- 
other humanity  which  should  not  understand  God 
at  all,  to  which  God  should  not  even  try  to  com- 
municate Himself,  which  He  should  govern  as  He 
governs  the  unintelligent  planets,  without  an  effort 
to  let  them  know  His  nature  or  His  plans.  Now 
which  of  these  two  is  this  humanity  of  ours?  Cer- 
tainly, neither  of  them.  Certainly  not  the  humanity 
which  knows  God  perfectly,  for  see  how  ignorant  we 
are !     But  certainly,  upon  the  other  hand,  not  the 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  47 

humanity  that  knows  nothing  of  God;  for  behold 
how  much  we  do  know,  how  precious  to  our  hearts 
is  what  we  know  of  Him ! 

What  then?  I  look  back  over  all  the  history  of 
man's  acquaintance  with  God,  all  the  religions,  all 
the  theologies,  and  it  seems  to  me  to  be  all  so  plain. 
Here  has  been  God  forever  desiring,  forever  trying, 
to  give  the  knowledge  of  Himself  to  man.  There 
has  been  never  anything  like  playing  with  man's 
mind,  like  leading  men  on  to  ask  questions  and 
then  wilfully  holding  back  the  knowledge  which 
men  asked  for;  always  God  has  been  trying  to 
make  men  understand  Him.  Never  has  He  turned 
and  gone  away  in  anger,  and  left  man  in  his  ignor- 
ance. He  has  hovered  about  man's  mind  with  an 
unbroken  presence.  Wherever  there  was  any  chink. 
He  has  thrust  in  some  knowledge  of  Himself.  Thus 
man  in  every  age,  in  every  condition,  even  in  his 
own  despite,  has  learned  that  God  is  just,  that 
God  is  merciful,  that  He  governs  the  world  in 
obedience  to  His  own  perfect  nature,  that  He  there- 
fore must  punish  and  that  He  must  reward.  These 
are  not  guesses  about  God  which  man  has  made. 
They  are  not  beliefs  about  Him  which  men  have 
reasoned  out  from  their  own  natures.  They  are 
the  truths  about  Himself  which  God  has  been  able 
to  press  into  the  human  understanding,  even  through 
every  veil  which  man  drew  between  himself  and  God. 

I  love  to  think  of  this;  I  love  to  think  that  there 
is  no  man  so  ignorant,  so  careless,  so  indifferent 
about  what  God  is  and  what  God  is  doing,  that  God 
is  not  all  the  time  pressing  upon  that  man's  life,  and 


48  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

crowding  into  it  all  the  knowledge  of  Himself  that 
it  will  take.  As  the  air  crowds  upon  everything, 
upon  the  solidest  and  hardest  stone,  and  on  the 
softest  and  most  porous  earth,  and  into  each  presses 
what  measure  of  itself  each  will  receive;  so  God 
limits  the  revelation  of  Himself  by  nothing  but  by 
the  capacity  of  every  man  to  take  and  hold  His 
revelation.  This  is  not  hard  to  understand  or  to 
believe.  Into  a  roomful  of  people  who  differ  in 
natural  capacity  and  education,  comes  one  man 
whose  nature  is  rich,  whom  to  know  is  itself  a  cul- 
ture. The  various  people  in  the  room  do  know  him, 
all  of  them  ;  but  one  knows  him  far  more  intimately, 
takes  him  far  more  deeply  into  his  understanding, 
than  another.  All  grades  of  knowledge  about  this 
newcomer  are  in  that  room,  from  almost  total  igno- 
rance to  almost  perfect  intimacy ;  but  it  is  not  that 
he  has  nicely  discriminated  and  determined  to  whom 
he  shall  give  himself,  to  whom  he  shall  deny  him- 
self, and  just  how  much  he  shall  give  himself  to 
each.  He  has  given  the  knowledge  of  himself  just 
as  bounteously  to  each,  just  as  far  into  each,  as  he 
could. 

I  love  to  think  that  that  is  true  of  God.  The 
blindest,  dullest  heathen  is  pressed  upon  by  that 
same  knowledge  of  God,  eager  to  give  itself  away, 
that  presses  on  the  wisest  saint.  The  heathen  does 
not  wait  till  our  missionary  comes  to  him.  You 
are  not  kept  waiting  until  all  your  doubts  are  settled 
and  your  fogs  dispersed.  At  this  moment,  on 
every  soul  in  this  wide  world,  God  is  shedding  that 
degree  of  the  knowledge  of  Himself  which  the  con- 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  49 

dition  of  that  soul  will  allow.  Is  not  that  where 
what  we  call  the  false  religions  come  from?  They 
are  imperfect  religions.  If  they  are  religions  at  all, 
as  indeed  they  are,  it  is  because  of  what  they  know 
of  God.  Our  missionaries  must  go  to  them  with 
our  religion  as  the  elder  brother  goes  to  the  younger 
brother,  speaking  of  the  father,  of  whom  they  both 
know  something,  out  of  the  fuller  knowledge  which 
has  come  to  him,  but  with  sincere  respect  and  rever- 
ence for  all  that  his  brother  has  been  able  to  learn 
already. 

Remember,  God  is  teaching  you  always  just  as 
much  truth  as  you  can  learn.  If  you  are  in  sorrow 
at  your  ignorance  then,  still  you  must  not  despair. 
Be  capable  of  more  knowledge  and  it  shall  be  given 
to  you.  What  hinders  you  from  knowing  God  per- 
fectly is  not  God's  unwillingness  but  your  imperfect- 
ness.  Grow  better  and  purer,  and  diviner  wisdom 
shall  come  to  you,  not  given  as  wages,  as  reward, 
but  simply  admitted  into  a  nature  grown  more 
capable  of  receiving  it.  Here  is  our  old  text  again : 
"If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the 
doctrine."  Here  is  Christ's  old  promise  again: 
"Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock.  If  any 
man  will  open  unto  me,  I  will  come  in  and  sup  with 
him." 

2.  But  see  again  how  true  our  truth  is  when  we 
think  of  God  as  the  giver  not  of  wisdom,  but  of 
comfort.  Two  men  are  in  deep  suffering;  the  same 
great  woe  has  fallen  upon  each  of  them.  They 
need,  with  their  poor  bruised  and  mangled  souls, 
they  both  need  some  healing,  some  strength  which 


so  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

they  cannot  make  for  themselves.  What  is  the 
reason  that  one  of  them  seems  to  get  it  and  the 
other  fails?  Why  is  it  that  one  lifts  up  his  head  and 
goes  looking  at  the  stars,  while  the  other  bends  and 
stoops,  and  goes  with  his  eyes  upon  the  ground? 
Is  one  God's  favorite  more  than  the  other?  Is  God 
near  to  one  and  far  off  from  the  other?  We  dream 
such  unhealthy  dreams !  We  fancy  such  unreal  dis- 
criminations and  favoritisms!  We  think  that  one 
soul  is  held  in  the  great  warm  hands,  while  the  other 
is  cast  out  on  the  cold  ground !  But  then  comes  in 
our  truth:  "He  is  not  far  from  every  one  of  us." 
From  every  one  of  us!  The  difference,  then,  cannot 
be  in  God  and  in  His  willingness;  it  must  be  in  the 
souls. 

What,  then,  can  we  say  to  any  soul  that  seems  to 
be  left  comfortless  when  other  souls  all  around  it 
are  gathering  in  comfort  plentifully?  There  are  two 
things  that  we  may  say,  I  think;  and  oh,  that  I 
could  say  them  to  any  of  your  souls  that  need 
them!  The  first  is  this:  God  is  comforting  and 
helping  you  even  when  you  do  not  know  it.  Do 
not  let  yourself  imagine  for  a  moment  that  God's 
help  to  you  is  limited  by  what  you  can  feel  and 
recognize.  Here  is  a  man  upon  whom  one  of  the 
great  blows  of  life  has  fallen.  He  is  not  embittered 
by  it.  He  is  not  proud  and  sullen.  He  goes  to 
God  and  knows  that  his  only  help  is  in  Him.  He 
goes  away  and  comes  back  to  the  same  mercy  seat, 
and  goes  away  and  comes  again ;  and  always  he 
seems  to  himself  to  be  carrying  his  whole  burden. 
He  cannot  feel  it  grow  any  lighter  on  his  shoulders. 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  51 

But  all  the  time  he  goes  about  his  work.  He  does 
his  duty.  He  will  not  let  his  sorrow  break  down 
his  conscience.  Do  not  I  know  something  about 
that  man  which  he  does  not  know  about  himself? 
Do  not  I  know  that  God  is  helping  him  when  he 
thinks  himself  most  unhelped?  Do  not  I  know  that 
his  burden  is  a  very  different  thing  from  what  it 
would  be  to  him  if  there  were  no  God?  Believe 
and  remember  that,  I  beseech  you,  about  your  own 
suffering.  If  you  are  really  looking  to  God  for 
help.  He  is  sending  you  help  although  you  do  not 
know  it.  Believe  it  also  about  your  temptation. 
If  you  are  really  asking  strength,  He  is  giving  you 
strength,  although  you  do  not  feel  it.  Feeling  is 
not  the  test.  Your  soul  is  feeding  on  it,  though 
your  eyes  may  not  see  it,  any  more  than  they  can 
see  the  sweet  and  wholesome  air  by  which  you 
live. 

And  then,  when  this  is  said ;  and  when  there  still 
remains  the  evident  difference  in  the  nearness  of  two 
men's  souls  to  God  which  this  cannot  explain ;  re- 
member then  that  the  difference  must  be  in  the  men. 
In  something  that  you  are,  not  in  anything  that 
God  is,  must  be  the  secret  of  the  darkness  of  your 
soul.  Do  not  let  yourself  for  one  moment  think  or 
feel  that  God  has  turned  His  back  upon  you,  that 
He  has  gone  away  from  you  and  left  you  to  your 
fate.  Don't  ask  yourself,  if  He  had,  who  are  you 
that  you  should  call  Him  back?  Who  is  He  that 
He  should  turn  round  at  your  calling?  That  way 
lies  despair.  No,  "He  is  not  far  from  every  one  of 
us."     He  is  not  far  from  you.     It  is  you  that  must 


52  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

turn  to  Him ;  and  when  you  turn  His  light  is  already 
shining  full  upon  you.  What  a  great  truth  it  is, 
how  full  of  courage,  this  truth  that  man  may  go 
away  from  God,  but  God  cannot  go  away  from  man1 
How  God  loves  His  own  great  character  of  faithful- 
ness !  He  cannot  turn  His  back  upon  His  child.  If 
His  face  is  not  shining  upon  you,  it  must  be  that 
your  back  is  turned  on  Him.  And  if  you  have 
turned  away  from  Him,  you  can  turn  back  to  Him 
again.  That  is  the  courage  which  always  comes  to 
one  who  takes  all  the  blame  of  life  upon  himself, 
and  does  not  cast  it  upon  God.  In  humility  there 
is  always  comfort  and  strength. 

3.  But  we  must  not  stop  here.  Where  is  the  God 
who  brings  the  spiritual  salvation,  who  makes  a  man 
know  his  sin,  and  gives  him  the  blessing  of  forgive- 
ness and  the  peace  of  the  new  life?  Is  He,  too, 
near  to  every  man,  ready  to  help,  always  trying  to 
help  all  men  to  be  deeply  and  spiritually  good? 
This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  what  a  great  many  men  find 
it  harder  to  believe  than  they  do  that  the  God  of 
wisdom  or  comfort  is  near  His  children.  Many  men 
believe  that  they  can  understand  God  and  lay  claim 
to  His  consolations,  who  seem  to  hold  that  His 
spiritual  presence,  the  softening,  elevating,  purify- 
ing power  of  His  grace,  belongs  to  certain  men  only. 
Indeed,  is  it  not  the  growing  heresy  of  our  time  that 
what  we  call  the  Christian  character,  the  beauty  of 
self-sacrifice,  devotion,  spiritual  duty,  is  possible  for 
some  men,  but  for  other  men,  perhaps  for  most 
men,  is  impossible?  That  Christian  character  is  not 
denied ;  its  charm  is  felt.     But  it  seems  to  belong 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  53 

to  certain  constitutions,  and  to  be  quite  out  of  the 
power  of  others. 

Ah,  how  the  human  mind  swings  back  forever  to 
a  few  first  ideas,  and  holds  them  in  some  new  form 
in  each  new  age,  but  does  not  get  beyond  them ! 
This  feeling  about  the  few  men  who  are  supposed 
to  be  capable  of  Christian  experience  is  but  the 
naturalistic  statement,  in  a  naturalistic  age,  of  the 
same  idea  which  in  a  legal  and  governmental  age 
was  stated  as  the  doctrine  of  election.  The  man 
who,  two  hundred  years  ago,  would  have  seen  his 
brethren  around  him  coming  to  Christ,  and  have 
sat  down  in  submissive  or  sullen  misery,  saying, 
' '  Well,  there  is  no  chance  for  me.  Others  are  called, 
but  I  am  non-elect," — that  same  man  now,  catch- 
ing the  tone  of  the  age,  looks  round  upon  the  pray- 
ing and  believing  multitude,  and  says  more  or  less 
sadly,  but  with  no  more  real  self-reproach  than  the 
soul  which  recognized  its  reprobation:  "Religion  is 
a  thing  of  temperament,  and  I  am  non-religious." 
Against  them  both,  protesting  that  both  are  false 
and  shallow  views  of  this  solemn  human  life  of  ours, 
— against  them  both,  whether  souls  are  hiding  in 
them  as  excuses,  or  crushed  under  them  as  burdens, 
there  stands  the  everlasting  simple  Bible  truth  of 
the  universal  nearness  of  God:  "He  is  not  far  from 
every  one  of  us." 

And  just  as  soon  as  men  really  get  below  the  sur- 
face, and  have  broken  through  the  superficial  look 
and  current  theories  of  things,  and  really  have  come 
to  real  study  of  their  own  spiritual  lives,  I  believe 
that  it  is  absolutely  true  that  they  always  find  that 


54 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 


there  is  nothing  which  so  meets  the  story  of  their 
lives,  nothing  which  can  so  explain  themselves  to 
themselves,  as  this;  which  you  may  call  at  first  an 
hypothesis  if  you  will,  but  which  verifies  itself  to  us 
as  all  hypotheses  must  verify  themselves,  by  the 
way  in  which  it  meets  the  facts  which  have  to  be 
explained ;  the  hypothesis  of  God  present  with  and 
always  trying  to  work  upon  our  souls,  to  make  them 
good,  pure,  strong,  true,  brave;  unseen  by  us,  but 
always  close  to  us;  and,  because  He  is  God,  always 
working,  always  hindered  by  our  ignorance,  our 
obstinacy,  our  wickedness,  but  never  discouraged, 
never  turning  away,  doing  all  that  omnipotent  Love 
can  do  upon  unwilling  human  souls  to  make  them 
live  to  Him. 

If  that  were  true,  what  would  our  life  be?  Think 
it  out;  think  how  a  being  would  live,  how  he  would 
feel,  that  was  thus  ever  touched  and  pressed  upon 
by  a  God  he  did  not  see,  trying  to  persuade  him  to 
holiness,  trying  to  convince  him  of  sin ;  and  then 
run  back  over  the  life  you  have  been  living  ever 
since  you  can  remember,  and  tell  me  if  they  do  not 
perfectly  match  and  coincide.  Restless,  self-accus- 
ing, dreaming  of  goodness  which  you  never  reached ; 
fitfully  trying  tasks  which  all  your  old  experience 
told  you  were  impossible ;  haunted  by  wishes  which 
you  dared  to  laugh  at,  but  did  not  dare  to  chase 
away ;  with  two  sets  of  standards  about  right  and 
wrong,  one  which  you  kept  for  the  world,  the  other 
which  you  hid  deep  in  your  heart  and  were  more 
than  half  ashamed  of; — what  does  all  that  corre- 
spond to  but  the  life  that  a  man  must  live  who  is 


THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD  55 

surrounded  and  pressed  upon  by  an  unseen  God? 
God-haunted  our  lives  are,  until  they  give  them- 
selves to  God,  as  the  brain  of  a  sleeper  is  haunted 
by  the  daylight  until  he  opens  his  eyes  and  gives 
himself  a  willing  servant  to  the  morning. 

Or  a  beast  lies  tangled  in  a  net.  Some  kind  hands 
try  to  unsnarl  the  cords  and  let  him  go.  The  crea- 
ture feels  them  tugging  at  the  strings,  and  writhes 
and  struggles  all  the  more,  and  twists  himself  into 
a  yet  more  inextricable  snarl.  But  by  and  by  he 
catches  in  his  dull  soul  the  meaning  of  the  tugs  and 
pulls  that  he  feels,  and  he  enters  into  sympathy  with 
his  deliverers.  He  lies  still  while  they  unbind  him, 
or  he  moves  only  so  as  to  help  their  efforts,  and  so 
at  last  he  is  free.  That  is  the  way  in  which  God 
sets  a  soul  free  from  its  sins.  And  therein  the  soul 
freed  from  its  sins  sees  the  explanation  of  all  its 
struggles  which  have  gone  before. 

This,  then,  is  the  story  of  the  present  God.  What 
is  the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation?  We  picture 
Christ  coming  from  far,  down  through  the  ranks  of 
angels,  down  from  the  battlements  of  heaven ;  far, 
far  beyond  the  sun  we  picture  Him  leaving  His 
eternal  seat  and  "coming  down  "  to  save  the  world. 
Then  we  picture  Christ's  departure.  Back  by  the 
way  He  came,  beyond  the  sun  again,  once  more 
through  the  shining  hosts,  until  He  takes  His  ever- 
lasting seat  at  the  right  hand  of  God.  There  is  truth 
in  such  pictures.  But  have  we  not  caught  more  of 
the  spirit  of  the  Incarnation  if  we  think  of  it,  not  as 
the  bringing  to  us  of  a  God  who  had  been  far  away, 
but  as  the  showing  to  us  of  a  God  who  had  been 


56  THE  NEARNESS  OF  GOD 

hidden?  It  is  as  if  the  cloud  parted  and  the  tired 
and  thirsty  traveller  saw  by  his  side  a  brook  of  clear, 
sweet  water,  running  along  close  by  the  road  he 
travelled.  Then  the  cloud  closed  again,  but  the 
traveller  who  had  once  seen  the  brook  never  could 
be  faint  with  thirst  again.  He  must  always  know 
where  to  find  it  and  drink  of  it.  Christ  was  not  a 
God  coming  out  of  absence.  He  was  the  ever- 
present  God,  revealing  how  near  He  always  was. 

And  so  of  the  new  life  of  Christ  in  man.  It  is 
not  something  strange  and  foreign,  brought  from 
far  away.  It  is  the  deepest  possibility  of  man,  re- 
vealed and  made  actual.  When  you  stand  at  last 
complete  in  Christ,  it  is  not  some  rare  adornments 
which  He  has  lent  from  His  Divinity  to  clothe  your 
humanity  with.  Those  graces  are  the  signs  of  your 
humanity.  They  are  the  flower  of  your  human  life, 
drawn  out  into  luxuriance  by  the  sunlight  of  the 
divine  Love.  You  take  them  as  your  own,  and 
"wear  them  as  the  angels  wear  their  wings." 

This  is  what  Belief  means,  then.  Not  the  far-off 
search  for  a  distant  God,  but  the  turning,  the  look- 
ing, the  trusting,  to  a  God  who  has  been  always 
present,  who  is  present  now.  This  is  what  Belief 
means.  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
thou  shalt  be  saved." 


IV. 

THE   OLD-NEW  AND  THE   NEW-OLD. 

"  But  these  things  have  I  told  you  that,  when  the  time  shall  come, 
ye  may  remember  that  I  told  you  of  them." — John  xvi.  4. 

Jesus  Christ  is  just  upon  the  point  of  leaving 
His  disciples.  He  has  but  a  few  more  days  to 
spend  with  them,  a  few  more  words  to  speak  to 
them.  And  so,  as  He  sits  gazing  into  their  faces, 
He  is  moved  to  tell  them  what  has  been  the  whole 
method  of  His  teaching  of  them.  He  tells  them 
that  He  has  always  had  this  hour  in  His  sight,  that 
always,  when  He  has  been  speaking  to  them,  it  has 
been  not  simply  the  present  moment  of  which  He 
has  been  thinking,  and  which  He  has  been  trying  to 
feed  with  truth ;  He  has  also  had  the  future  in  His 
mind.  He  has  been  storing  in  the  granaries  of  their 
nature  provision  for  the  wants  which  were  to  be  de- 
veloped in  far  distant  days. 

The  disciples  must  have  been  deeply  impressed 
and  touched  by  those  words  of  their  Master.  They 
must  have  felt  their  whole  nature  taken  up  into  His 
hands.  Their  future  needs  must  have  grown  real 
to  their  anticipation  when  they  heard  their  Lord  say 
that  He  had  been  providing  for  those  needs.     And 

57 


58       THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

the  warm  sense  of  His  affection,  of  how  entirely  He 
loved  them,  must  have  filled  their  souls  with  strength 
and  comfort.  For  there  is  no  proof  and  sign  of  love 
like  this  which,  in  its  own  extremity  of  suffering, 
forgets  itself  and  takes  care  that  those  whom  it  loves 
shall  not  suffer  because  of  its  departure  from  them ; 
and  goes  to  its  martyrdom  making  each  footprint 
of  its  agony  a  well  out  of  which  they  may  drink. 

It  was  the  token  of  Christ's  thoughtfulness  for 
them  that  must  have  touched  them.  No  benefac- 
tion touches  us  deeply  which  has  not  the  idea  of 
thoughtfulness  pervading  it.  That  is  the  reason 
why  we  are  not  touched  and  grateful  at  the  benefi- 
cence of  nature,  save  in  a  figure.  The  sky  has  not 
treasured  its  rain  because  we  are  going  to  need  it  by 
and  by,  nor  stored  its  sunshine  because  it  foresees 
that  the  earth  will  lie  naked  and  shivering  when 
February  comes.  Law  cannot  win  our  gratitude, 
however  it  may  stir  our  admiration  and  our  gladness. 
But  God  foresees  our  need,  and  stocks  the  world  for 
its  supply.  "Thou  hast  prepared  a  table  before  me," 
says  David.  It  is  the  preparation  more  than  the 
table  that  draws  His  soul  to  God.  And  so,  even 
more  than  the  truth  He  had  laid  up  for  them,  the 
fact  that  He  Jiad  laid  up  truth  for  them  was  what 
impressed  the  disciples  with  the  love  of  Christ. 

But  when  we  look  at  what  Christ  had  actually 
done,  we  are  impressed  with  the  wisdom  and  the 
depth  of  His  treatment  of  His  servants.  It  is  in- 
deed the  method  which  all  wise  and  loving  education 
naturally  takes.  It  makes  the  difference  between 
the  teaching  which  is  hard  and  meagre  and  the  other 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       59 

teaching  which  is  rich  and  sympathetic.  A  master 
orders  his  servant  to  do  a  certain  task,  and  he  gives 
him  just  the  instruction  which  that  task  requires. 
But  a  father  educates  his  son,  and  he  stores  away 
into  that  unconscious  nature  a  hundred  things  which 
his  experience  has  taught  him  that  the  boy's  ad- 
vancing experience  will  by  and  by  require.  A 
worthy  teacher  deals  worthily  with  his  scholar;  and 
it  is  like  the  fitting  out  of  a  ship  in  some  southern 
harbor  for  the  voyage  which  she  is  to  make  in  arctic 
seas.  She  lies  there  in  the  sunshine  at  the  hospitable 
wharf,  with  the  warm  atmosphere  about  her,  every- 
thing bright  and  open  and  summerlike;  and  men 
are  bringing  on  board  great  casks  of  provisions  and 
bales  of  thick  warm  clothing.  They  are  making  her 
walls  thick  and  her  doors  close,  to  keep  out  cold 
which  as  yet  she  has  never  felt.  They  are  strength- 
ening her  sides  for  the  assaults  of  icy  seas  of  which 
she  has  not  dreamed.  Long  months  the  stores  of 
clothing  and  of  food  will  lie  in  the  darkness  of  her 
hold.  She  will  sail  forth,  and  for  a  time  it  will  ap- 
pear as  if  there  were  no  use  for  such  strange  pro- 
vision. But  at  last  the  day  will  come,  among  the 
icebergs,  close  to  the  pole,  when  she  will  need  them 
all;  and  then  they  will  come  forth  to  bear  their 
blessed  testimony  to  the  wise  care  which  filled  the 
ship's  hold  with  them  on  the  June  day  when  she 
was  loaded.  So  does  the  teacher  tell  his  pupil 
things  of  which  the  pupil  sees  not  now  the  meaning 
or  the  use,  that,  when  the  time  of  need  shall  come, 
he  may  remember  that  his  teacher  told  him  of  them. 
Every  now  and  then  we  hear  from  parents  and 


6o        THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

from  teachers  talk  which  we  cannot  help  thinking 
foolish  and  shortsighted.  "  Let  us  teach  children," 
so  it  runs,  "nothing  which  they  cannot  immediately 
understand."  If  we  really  mean  by  "understand- 
ing" the  clear  and  immediate  apprehension  of  the 
truth  and  all  that  it  involves,  then  surely  such  words 
describe  a  very  meagre  education,  and  one  that  pro- 
vides only  for  a  very  monotonous  and  narrow  life. 
The  ship  which  men  load  thus  must  sail  forever  in 
the  zone  where  it  was  freighted.  If  it  cross  the 
circle  and  sail  into  another  zone,  its  food  will  spoil 
and  its  crew  will  lie  shivering  and  frozen  on  its  decks. 
If  you  say,  "My  child  has  never  yet  met  sorrow, 
and  so  I  will  not  tell  him  what  the  sources  of  con- 
solation are;  he  has  not  met  temptation,  and  so  I 
cannot  inspire  him  with  the  thought  of  the  sinfulness 
of  sin;  he  is  not  sensible  of  the  attraction  of  study, 
and  I  must  not  tell  him  of  the  duty  of  study ;  he  has 
never  asked  for  truth,  and  so  I  will  teach  him  no 
creed" — do  you  not  see  how  meagre  all  this  makes 
your  relationship  to  him?  Do  you  not  see  how 
suspiciously  it  keeps  you  standing  over  him,  deter- 
mining that  he  shall  have  no  food  until  the  appetite 
cries  out  for  it?  Do  you  not  see  how  it  loses  for 
him  all  that  crowding  and  tempting  forth  of  appetite 
which  comes  from  the  sense  of  carrying  untasted 
food  stored  in  the  bosom  of  his  life?  Do  you  not 
see  how  it  limits  your  opportunity  of  help  to  him 
and  leaves  the  long  future,  when  you  may  be  gone 
out  of  his  sight,  beyond  the  chance  of  any  such 
ministry  as  your  love  craves  to  give  him? 

Rather,  tell  your  child  or  your  scholar  the  very 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       6i 

best  you  know ;  tell  it  as  simply,  in  as  true  relation 
to  his  intrinsic  nature  as  you  can ;  tell  him  of  Christ 
in  all  the  richness  of  His  love;  so  you  will  be  feeding 
him  for  days  which  shall  not  dawn  for  long  years 
yet.  Put  the  whole  seed  of  truth  into  him,  and  as 
his  ship  sails  on  from  zone  to  zone,  each  new  zone 
will  call  out  its  new  growth  to  greet  it.  The  deck 
will  be  always  bright  with  flowers,  always  opening 
anew  in  each  new  climate  out  of  seed  which  you 
planted  against  that  hour.  So  let  your  scholar  or 
your  child  sail  forth  out  of  your  schoolroom  or  your 
home,  carrying  in  him  unknown  strength  and  char- 
acter which  shall  unfold  for  the  supply  of  emergen- 
cies of  which  as  yet  he  has  not  dreamed. 

But  when,  in  a  more  deliberate  way,  we  take  the 
words  of  Jesus  Christ  which  declare  this  truth,  and 
find  in  them  His  statement  of  the  whole  method  of 
His  religion,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  join  with  them 
some  other  words  of  His.  "Lo,  I  am  with  you 
always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world,"  He  said. 
These  two  utterances,  together,  seem  to  include  the 
whole  system  of  the  perpetuation  and  development 
of  the  Christian  Faith.  See  how  they  co-operate 
with  one  another.  Jesus  says  that  He  has  sown  in 
His  disciples'  hearts  truths  which  the  coming  ex- 
periences and  emergencies  of  life  are  to  unfold.  He 
says  also  that  He  Himself  will  be  forever  present  to 
preside  over  the  unfolding  of  those  truths.  He 
stores  His  Church  with  all  that  it  is  going  to  need. 
Yet  He  does  not  send  it  forth  out  of  His  hands,  to 
have  no  more  personal  connection  with  Him,  but 
He  goes  with  it  to  make  the  truth  which,  in  the 


62   THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

days  of  each  new  need,  it  brings  out  of  its  treasuries, 
fresh  and  vital  with  Himself. 

Behold  the  completeness  and  proportion  of  that 
picture !  Here  is  an  historic  faith  which  yet  is  always 
full  of  spontaneity !  Its  historic  character  gives  it 
solidity  and  continual  identity.  Its  spontaneity 
makes  it  the  new  faith  of  each  succeeding  age.  It 
is  a  faith  which  may  picture  itself  under  the  meta- 
phor of  a  rock  or  under  the  metaphor  of  a  fountain. 
Some  men,  in  Christian  history,  thinking  of  Chris- 
tianity only  as  an  historical  religion,  have  made  it 
hard  and  stiff  and  formal,  a  thing  of  traditions  and 
of  precedents,  to  be  unearthed  out  of  patristic  books 
and  to  be  cultivated  by  the  preservation  of  old  cere- 
monies. Other  men,  scarcely  recognizing  the  his- 
torical nature  of  Christianity  at  all,  have  made  it  a 
thing  of  immediate  inspiration.  The  present  Christ 
was  everything,  the  historic  Christ  was  almost  noth- 
ing. Their  religion  might  be  almost  said  to  perish 
and  be  born  anew  each  instant. 

It  is  the  glory  of  the  New  Testament  pictures  of 
these  two  utterances  of  Jesus,  that  they  preserve 
the  strength  and  escape  the  weakness  of  each  of 
these  two  ideas  by  blending  them  with  one  another. 
The  Churchman  and  the  Quaker  meet  in  the  full 
Christian  of  those  wide,  wise  pages.  The  thing 
which  the  Church  is  to-day,  it  has  been  potentially 
from  the  beginning,  and  yet  it  becomes  this  to-day 
by  the  immediate  power  of  a  present  Christ.  Like 
the  tree  which  had  all  the  luxuriance  of  this  sweet 
and  gorgeous  springtime  in  the  seed  which  the 
farmer  planted  who  died   fifty  years  ago,  and  yet 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       6^ 

which  blossomed  this  spring  because  spring  had 
come  and  this  May's  sun  had  shone;  so  the  Church 
and  the  Faith,  historic  and  spontaneous  at  once, 
have  in  them,  as  they  present  themselves  to-day,  the 
power  of  the  Christ  who  spoke  by  the  side  of  the 
sea  of  Tiberias  words  which  His  disciples  then  only 
half-understood,  and  also  the  power  of  the  Christ 
who  to-day  feeds  them  with  His  ever-living  love, 
His  ever-timely  wisdom. 

Of  course  all  this  is  true  not  only  of  the  historic 
faith,  but  it  is  true  of  all  life,  for  all  life  is  historic. 
" De  niliilo  niJiil,'" — there  is  no  life  upon  the  earth 
to-day  that  has  not  come  of  previous  life.  To  feel 
the  beating  of  that  previous  life,  to  recognize  as 
elements  in  what  is  done  to-day  the  force  of  things, 
known  or  unknown,  which  were  done  years  and 
years  ago, — that  is  the  historic  spirit.  No  institu- 
tion of  the  present,  however  it  may  seem  to  have 
sprung  yesterday  out  of  the  soil,  no  life,  however  it 
may  seem  to  be  free  from  every  bondage  of  the  past, 
is  capable  of  being  understood  without  the  activity 
of  that  historic  spirit. 

And  yet  that  spirit  alone  can  never  read  the  entire 
secret,  or  account  for  all  the  power  of  any  institu- 
tion or  life.  Everything  is  historic,  but  nothing  is 
entirely  historical.  Everything  that  truly  lives,  lives 
now.  There  is  a  living  power,  a  power  of  life,  which 
now  vitalizes  that  which  has  come  down  of  the  past, 
and  makes  it  a  true  being  of  the  actual  present. 

Here  is  an  act  which  some  man — he  may  have 
been  a  ruler  playing  with  the  fates  of  empires, 
he  may  have  been  a  farmer  doing  the  springtime 


64      THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

ploughing  in  his  field — here  is  an  act  which  some 
man  has  done  this  week.  How  shall  I  study  it? 
How  shall  I  understand  it?  What  shall  it  mean  to 
me?  Most  impressive  is  it  if  I  think  of  it  historically. 
I  see  the  far-off  centuries  converging  on  this  mo- 
mentary action.  I  hear  the  sweep  of  distant  forces 
crowding  onward  through  forgotten  periods  to  in- 
sure that  this  thing  shall  be  done.  I  see  men  of 
long-vanished  times  and  of  mysterious  races  plan- 
ning for — they  know  not  what,  but  really  to  make 
this  possible.  Then,  coming  nearer,  I  see  the  recog- 
nizable play  of  cause  and  effect,  effect  and  cause, 
each  cause  issuing  as  effect,  each  effect  turning  into 
cause.  I  hear  the  click  and  clank  of  the  machinery 
from  which  at  last  issues  this  event. 

All  that  is  wonderfully  interesting  and  impressive; 
and  yet  how  I  have  failed  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
action,  if  this  is  all  I  have  to  say !  To  leave  out  all 
the  tale  of  present  energy  and  purpose;  not  to  ob- 
serve nor  to  describe  the  stream  of  living  power  in 
the  statesman's  or  the  peasant's  nature  which  plays 
on  all  this  historical  machinery  and  makes  it  live ;  to 
let  go  all  the  personality  and  spontaneity  of  will; 
— that  would  be  the  grossest  blunder.  It  would  be 
the  blunder  of  a  pedant,  and  a  pedant's  blunders 
always  are  the  worst  blunders.  To  misread  the 
working  of  present,  vital  force  is  bad ;  to  deny  pres- 
ent working  force  is  infinitely  worse,  for  it  degrades 
the  world  to  a  machine. 

The  truth  is  that  the  vital  power  of  present  men 
and  present  motives  is  what  keeps  the  world  alive 
to-day.  Living  desires  of  living  souls,  the  wishes, 
y 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       65 

the  determinations  of  men  to  do  and  be  things  here 
and  now, — these  are  what  constitute  the  world's 
vitality.  History  accounts  for  the  forms  of  their 
activity,  but  the  springs  of  their  activity  are  in 
themselves.  All  history  might  be  abolished;  all 
that  is  in  man  by  inheritance  might  be  eliminated 
and  cast  out ;  man  might  stand  as  fresh  and  new  as 
if  he  were  an  Adam  of  yesterday,  with  no  garden, 
no  fall,  no  experience  behind  him;  and  he  would 
live — clumsily,  awkwardly,  but  he  would  live.  He 
would  begin  to  make  history,  for  history  is  the 
utterance  of  life,  afterwards  becoming  the  feeder 
and  teacher  of  life;  but  it  is  never  the  creator  of 
life,  and  so  it  is  always  the  inferior  of  those  fresh 
currents  of  vitality  which  are  forever  issuing  new 
and  original  from  the  fountain  of  God,  and  flowing 
through  the  vital  channels  of  men's  wills. 

"There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun"  is  a  true 
but  also  shallow  proverb.  "Everything  under  the 
sun  is  new"  is  vastly  truer  and  profounder.  In  the 
meeting  of  the  two  proverbs,  in  the  combination  of 
them  as  the  account  of  life,  lies  the  meeting  of  the 
historic  and  the  spontaneous  consciousness  of  man. 

You  remember  how  Tennyson  nobly  sings : 

Love  thou  thy  land  with  love  far  brought 

From  out  the  storied  past,  but  used 

Within  the  present,  and  transfused 
Through  distant  times  by  povi^er  of  thought. 

There  is  the  true  spirit  of  history.  The  storied  past 
opens  her  gates  and  out  of  them  comes  the  great 
caravan  bringing  its  precious  freight  of  rich  associa- 

5 


66        THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

tions,  noble  deeds,  and  truths  wrought  out  in  the 
experiences  of  other  days.  The  caravan  slowly 
winds  over  the  desert  of  the  centuries  until  it  enters 
the  city  of  our  present  life.  Then  down  from  the 
camels'  backs  come  the  rich  and  fragrant  bales. 
They  are  torn  open  by  the  eager  hands  of  present 
needs.  Their  contents  are  seized  for  present  use. 
Thought  transforms  them  into  shapes  in  which  the 
future  is  to  use  them.  And  by  and  by  we  load  the 
camels  once  again,  to  travel  on  over  new  deserts  t,o 
new  cities  of  the  still  distant  times,  bearing  the 
treasures  of  history  made  richer  by  the  free  uses  of 
spontaneous  life  to  which  they  have  been  freely  put. 

Such  is  all  life  —  an  Adam  ever  being  born,  an 
image  ever  being  formed  out  of  the  dusty  past,  but 
made  a  true  existence  in  the  present  by  the  direct 
inspiration  of  the  living  God. 

And  now,  to  return  and  consider  the  position  of 
our  Christian  Faith.  Christianity  is  an  historical 
religion.  Think  what  its  great  creed  is,  which  we 
say  together  Sunday  after  Sunday.  It  is  a  recital  of 
history.  '  It  is  the  epic  of  a  human  life.  Something 
which  actually  happened,  some  one  who  actually 
lived, — it  is  in  these  that  we  believe.  True,  those 
historical  events  and  that  historic  Person  were  the 
utterances  on  the  theatre  of  human  life  of  everlast- 
ing principles,  of  truths  and  forces  which  had  been 
real  in  the  universe  eternally.  That  Christ  was  the 
Everlasting  Son  of  the  Father.  His  sacrifice  was 
the  utterance  of  an  Eternal  Love.  His  Resurrection 
was  the  triumph  of  the  Essential  Principle  of  Life. 
Behind  His  history,  as  behind  all  history,  there  lay 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       67 

those  first  and  fundamental  truths  which  must  be 
true  before  anything  can  happen  in  the  world.  But 
none  the  less  the  manifestation  of  those  eternal 
truths  and  natures  in  Christ,  and  the  events  that 
came  in  their  developments,  were  epochs  in  the  his- 
tory of  man,  producing  new  results  and  starting  new 
processes.  If  a  child's  life,  touching  the  earth  like 
a  feather,  cannot  be  laid  upon  our  planet  without 
changing  its  equilibrium  and  making  life  here  diiTer- 
ent  from  what  it  had  been  before,  surely  the  life  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  exhibition  of  God's  nature  in  the 
life  of  man,  must  have  opened  new  sources  of  power, 
and  altered  every  life  of  man  which  should  be  lived 
upon  the  earth  forever. 

This  is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  Christian- 
ity is  an  historical  religion.  Do  you,  a  total  stranger 
to  our  faith,  ask  what  our  faith  is?  We  must  first 
of  all  draw  back  a  curtain ;  we  must  show  you  a  Per- 
son, walking  in  certain  fields  still  extant  in  the 
world's  geography,  treading  on  pavements  which 
we  still  may  tread,  toiling  up  mountains  and  over 
plains  where  our  feet  still  may  struggle  in  their 
weariness  —  this  Person  at  a  certain  recognizable 
time,  a  certain  date,  doing  certain  recorded  acts, 
living  a  certain  life, — Him  we  must  point  out  to  you 
and  say:  "He  is  our  religion.  That  Christ  is 
Christianity." 

But  then,  when  this  bewilders  you,  when  you 
seem  to  find  it  all  so  remote  and  long  ago,  when  the 
historicalness  of  it  all  seems  to  take  it  outside  of  all 
your  present  needs,  then  is  the  time  to  tell  you  how 
the  historic  Christ  is  a  perpetual  Presence  among 


68       THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

mankind,  making  His  own  record  a  living  Power. 
The  Christ  of  history  becomes  the  Christ  of  the  soul. 
The  story  becomes  quickened  by  the  actual  presence 
of  Him  of  whom  the  story  tells.  It  is  so  wonderful ! 
It  is  as  if  while  I  read  the  record  of  what  the  martyrs 
did,  the  very  martyrs  themselves  were  here  looking 
me  in  the  face,  firing  me  with  their  actual  enthus- 
iasm, each  of  them,  as  he  pointed  to  the  picture  of 
a  deed,  saying:  "Yes,  I  did  that  by  the  power  of 
God ;  and  you  can  do  it,  too,  for  God  is  your  God 
as  truly  as  He  was  mine."  How  the  two  elements 
would  work  together !  How  the  old  past  would  live 
with  the  new  present !  How  the  power  of  history, 
and  the  power  of  an  immediate  inspiration,  would 
minister  to  one  another ! 

Now,  that  is  the  feeblest  picture  of  the  way  in 
which,  in  Christianity,  the  historic  Christ  and  the 
ever-present  Christ  become  one  power  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  soul.  "I  am  he  that  liveth  and  was 
dead,  and  lo!  I  am  alive  for  evermore."  So  Christ 
described  Himself  to  John  in  Patmos.  The  "was 
dead"  is  history.  Back  comes  the  well-remembered 
scene  of  Calvary  and  the  tomb  in  the  garden.  All 
the  distinct  facts  that  happened  there  come  back, 
and  "Lo,  I  am  alive  for  evermore,"  makes  those 
facts  new,  present  realities  to  the  soul  which  needs 
the  assurance  of  the  love,  and  the  example  of  the 
patience,  which  were  stored  away  in  them  centuries 
ago.  The  Christian  reads  his  Bible,  and  the  Christ 
beside  him  and  the  Christ  within  him  make  clear  to 
him  the  soul  of  the  Christ  who  walks  and  works  and 
suffers  in  these  blessed  pages.     That  is  the  meeting 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD   69 

in  oneness  of  the  historic  and  the  eternal  Christ. 
The  Christian  presses  the  Bible  to  his  heart,  and 
deep  utterances  all  his  own,  utterances  of  love  and 
help  and  wisdom  which  have  been  kept  in  that  Bible 
for  him,  unread  by  any  other  of  the  millions  who 
have  pressed  it  to  their  hearts,  come  forth  at  the 
summons  of  his  Christ  who  lives  in  his  soul,  and 
give  themselves  at  last  to  him  for  whom  they  have 
been  waiting  all  these  years. 

To  keep  either  one  of  the  two  aspects  of  our  faith 
alone  breaks  its  completeness,  and  so  makes  it  weak. 
Some  men  and  some  ages  have  thought  almost 
solely  of  its  historic  character.  They  have  spent 
their  devotion  in  the  worship  of  its  sacred  places. 
They  have  sent  Crusades  for  the  rescue  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre.  They  have  travelled  in  long  pilgrimages, 
that  they  might  touch  the  ground  on  which  the 
blessed  feet  of  Christ  trod.  They  have  made  the 
preservation  of  the  forms  of  the  earliest  Church 
the  object  of  their  toils  and  prayers.  They  have 
clung  to  first  statements  of  truth  as  if  there  were  no 
living  Spirit  of  Truth  among  men  to-day.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  have  been  ages  and  men  to  whom 
the  historic  character  of  Christianity  has  meant  very 
little.  To  them  the  great  Christian  religion  has 
found  its  only  sanction  in  the  present  needs  and 
instincts  of  the  human  soul.  Christ  has  by  them 
been  hardly  thought  of  as  an  actual  being  who  once 
lived  on  earth.  He  has  become  a  world-pervading 
Spirit,  a  name  for  all  the  upward  forces  of  the  soul 
of  man,  a  dear  conception  of  the  present  God. 

We  can  see  the  danger  of  hardness  and  formalism 


70       THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

which  must  beset  the  first  kind  of  men  and  ages. 
We  can  see  the  danger  of  vagueness  and  subjectivity 
which  must  beset  the  others.  And  we  are  right. 
The  first  men  and  ages  have  become  hard  and  formal. 
The  others  have  become  vague  and  subjective.  But 
the  true  faith  has  the  defects  and  vices  of  neither, 
because  it  has  the  truth  and  excellence  of  both.  It 
is  sharp,  clear,  definite,  objective;  and  yet  is  free 
and  fresh  and  spiritual  and  different  and  new  for 
every  soul.  Its  Christ  is  there  in  Palestine,  and  yet 
here  in  the  soul.  He  is  all  the  more  there  because 
He  is  here,  and  all  the  more  here  because  He  is 
there.  The  inner  pilgrimages,  the  visits  of  the 
weakened  will  for  the  recovery  from  its  weakness  to 
the  holy  places  in  the  soul  where  Christ  abides,  are 
all  the  more  vivid  and  real  because  of  that  voice 
which  cries  down  out  of  history  from  the  last  day, 
that  great  day  of  the  Feast,  when  a  visible  Saviour 
stood  in  the  old  Hebrew  Temple  and  cried,  "If  any 
man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink."  And 
those  venerable  spots  in  Palestine  are  and  have  ever 
been  the  inspiration  of  mankind,  because  each  new 
soul,  as  it  became  conscious  of  itself,  found  their 
spiritual  geography  repeated  in  itself,  and  all  that 
once  took  place  there  taking  place  again  and  forever 
upon  its  little  stage. 

This  is  the  complete  Christianity.  Let  us  beware 
lest  in  our  lives  it  lose  either  of  its  two  parts,  and 
become  incomplete.  Let  the  voice,  which  summons 
us  to  be  Christians,  call  us  with  both  of  these  inspir- 
ing tones.  ' '  Come  to  Christ !  "  let  it  say ;  and  let  the 
Christ  to  whom  it  summons  us  be  both  the  Christ  of 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       71 

history  and  the  Christ  forever  manifest  and  power- 
ful in  the  soul  of  man.  Come  to  Him  who  lived  in 
the  blessed  story  of  the  Gospels.  Come,  and  as 
truly  as  if  you  were  Peter  or  John,  make  yourself 
His  disciple  and  follower.  Come  to  His  manger- 
cradle,  and  adore  the  mystery  of  God  made  man. 
Come  walk  with  Him  and  hear  His  teaching.  Come 
to  His  Cross,  and  feel  the  rich  power  of  the  perfect 
Sacrifice.  Do  this  really  and  definitely,  so  that 
when  men  ask  you,  when  you  ask  yourself,  "Who 
is  your  Master?  "  your  glowing  face  shall  turn,  your 
eager  finger  shall  point  there,  to  the  Man  of  the 
days  in  Palestine,  to  the  summit  of  history  where 
stand  the  shining  feet  of  the  Incarnate  God. 

And  yet,  let  the  cry,  "Come  to  Christ,"  keeping 
this  meaning,  be  to  you  also  the  summons  to  a 
present  Righteousness  and  Love,  to  an  immediate 
Divinity  here  at  your  side,  here  in  your  heart, 
whom  you  may  hear  speak  words  of  loving  wisdom 
which  were  never  spoken  to  any  ear  before ;  let  it 
be  your  Christ,  who  is  the  utterance  of  God's  Love 
calling  you  and  of  your  possibility  of  holiness.  Let 
it  be  your  Christ,  to  whom  you  come  in  answer  to 
an  invitation,  in  the  claiming  of  a  privilege,  that  is 
all  your  own. 

Let  us  come  back  for  a  moment  to  where  we 
began.  Jesus  Christ  is  taking  leave  of  His  disciples, 
and  He  says:  "I  have  told  you  the  truth.  All  the 
truth  which  you  and  they  who  come  after  you  are 
to  need  forever,  I  have  given  you."  And  the  dis- 
ciples sit  silent  and  awed,  as  men  who  hold  mys- 
terious,  unopened   treasures   in  their  hands.     And 


72       THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD 

then  Christ  goes  on:  "Not  yet  do  you  know,  not 
yet  can  you  know,  all  the  rich  meaning  of  what  I 
have  given  you ;  but  when  the  time  shall  come,  then 
I  will  be  with  you,  and  we  together  will  open  these 
closed  words  of  mine,  and  then  all  that  is  in  them 
shall  be  yours." 

Can  we  conceive  a  nobler,  a  more  inspiring  or 
gracious  programme  for  human  history  than  that? 
As  the  years  have  gone  by,  as  again  and  again  "the 
time  has  come,"  and  the  Christian  world,  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  has  "remembered  that  its  Master  told 
it  of  these  things,"  and  has  seen  the  covering  drawn 
back  and  the  deeper  meaning  of  some  word  of  His 
made  plain,  and  has  known  that  it  was  by  His  pre- 
sent spirit  that  His  historic  word  was  being  illu- 
minated, has  not  His  promise  been  fulfilled? 

What  "times  shall  come"  in  the  future,  who  shall 
dare  to  say?  We  only  know  that  the  full  time,  the 
whole  time,  has  not  come  yet.  What  light  shall 
stream  out  of  God's  word,  richening  and  deepening 
all  the  light  that  it  has  shown  before ;  what  the  old 
ever-new  story  of  the  Gospels  may  have  to  say  to 
the  new  needs  of  the  men  and  the  society  and  the 
nations  which  are  yet  to  be,  no  man  can  presume  to 
say.  The  new-old  Christ  in  the  old-new  world ! — 
can  we  not  hear  Him  saying,  as  He  repeats  His 
precious  truths:  "These  things  have  I  told  you, 
that  ye  may  remember  that  I  told  you  of  them." 

This  makes  the  unity  of  the  succeeding  genera- 
tions. To  each  of  them  the  ever-present  Christ 
opens  something  more  of  that  treasury  of  truth  and 
life  which  was  enfolded  in  His  historic  Incarnation. 


THE  OLD-NEW  AND  THE  NEW-OLD       73 

They  are  one  with  each  other — the  fathers,  the 
mediaevalists,  the  reformers  —  in  their  common  loy- 
alty to  the  Incarnate  Lord  and  Master;  while  each 
lives  his  own  life  in  that  degree  of  the  truth  of  the 
Lord  and  Master  which  has  been  made  known  to 
him. 

And  as  between  the  ages,  so  between  contempo- 
rary men.  To  each  different  soul  among  us  different 
"time"  has  come,  and  with  each  "time"  its  own 
enlightenment.  And  yet  all  the  enlightenments  are 
broken  lights  of  the  "Light  which  lighteth  every 
man."  Shall  we  not  all  be  one  in  Him,  however 
each  "cannot  but  speak  those  things  which  he  hath 
heard  and  seen  "? 

There  is  no  other  name  under  heaven  given 
among  men,  whereby  we  can  be  saved,  but  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  yet  each  man  is  saved 
by  Christ  with  his  own  appropriate  salvation.  Let 
us  give  ourselves  to  the  eternal  Christ,  and  then  wait 
working,  and  work  waiting,  till,  little  by  little,  but 
ever  more  and  more,  He  shall  show  us  of  His  truth 
and  lead  us  at  last  into  whatever  chamber  of  His 
righteousness  He  has  made  ready  for  our  eternal 
home. 


V. 

INDESTRUCTIBLE    POSSESSIONS. 

"  For  when  he  dieth  he  shall  carry  nothing  away  :  his  glory  shall 
not  descend  after  him." — Psalm  xlix.  17. 

It  is  an  old  familiar  story  that  David  is  singing 
over  in  his  Psalm.  He  is  talking  about  the  worldly 
man,  and  the  thought  of  him  suggests,  as  it  so  often 
does,  the  coming  close  of  earthly  life.  The  time  is 
fast  approaching  when  the  man  of  wealth  and  friends 
and  bright,  gay,  shining  circumstances,  is  to  leave 
them  all.  He  is  to  put  his  hand  into  the  hand  of  a 
messenger  who  comes  to  summon  him,  and  he  is  to 
go  out  naked  into  a  new  life  where  the  things  that 
have  most  illuminated  his  life  here  can  have  no  pos- 
sibility of  existence.  "When  he  dieth,  he  shall  carry 
nothing  away :  his  glory  shall  not  descend  after 
him."  The  rich  man  leaves  his  money.  The 
famous  man  passes  out  of  the  sound  of  clapping 
hands.  The  Sybarite  casts  one  look  back  on  his 
soft  cushions,  and  then  goes  down  the  dark,  hard 
path. 

It  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  all  the  thoughts  of  man, 
— the  separation  of  a  man  by  death  from  what  he 
has  accumulated  in  his  life.     It  has  had  most  differ- 

74 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  75 

ent  effects  on  different  men.  Some  men  it  has 
paralyzed,  as  if  there  could  be  no  use  in  winning 
what  they  must  so  soon  lose.  Other  men  it  has 
filled  with  a  feverish  eagerness,  and  made  them 
work  with  tenfold  zeal,  as  if  they  must  at  once  get 
all  that  they  could  get  out  of  the  things  which  were 
so  soon  to  be  taken  from  them.  I  hope  that  we 
can  see  that  there  is  an  influence  more  noble  and 
more  just  which  the  certainty  that  death  must 
separate  us  from  many  of  the  gains  and  treasures  of 
our  lives  ought  to  have,  and  may  have,  upon  us  all. 

And  at  the  very  outset  we  may  notice  that  power- 
ful as  this  conviction  is,  much  as  it  weighs  upon  and 
influences  our  lives,  it  is  not,  and  it  evidently  was 
not  meant  to  be,  the  strongest  or  the  most  constant 
of  the  powers  that  influence  men's  minds.  Another 
conviction — the  conviction  that  it  is  good  to  ac- 
cumulate the  things  which  make  life  rich,  that  the 
enrichment  of  life  is  in  itself  a  worthy  desire  for  a 
human  creature,  even  in  spite  of  the  certainty  that 
it  must  soon  be  stripped  away, — this  conviction  al- 
ways comes  in  first,  and  will  not  let  its  brightness 
be  blotted  out  by  the  shadow  of  the  coming  death. 
Surely  there  is  something  impressive  and  very 
significant  in  this. 

You  go  to  the  merchant,  toiling  in  his  shop,  piling 
his  dollar  on  dollar,  and  before  his  eyes  you  lift  the 
curtain  that  hangs  only  a  few  rods  off  and  show  him 
the  inevitable  future,  his  pile  of  money  left  behind 
him  to  be  used  in  ways  for  which  he  does  not  care, 
ways  which  perhaps  he  hates,  by  people  whose 
whole  characters  and  habits  laugh  at  the  way  in  which 


76  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

his  money  has  been  earned,  and  he  looks  up  for  a 
moment  at  your  picture,  shakes  his  head  carelessly 
at  it  as  if  it  were  the  picture  of  some  other  man,  and 
then  plunges  his  hands  into  his  gold  again  and  piles 
dollar  upon  dollar  faster  than  ever,  to  make  up  for 
lost  time.  You  make  the  idol  of  the  people  enter 
by  anticipation  into  the  silence  of  the  land  where  the 
praise  of  fellow-man  shall  either  never  for  a  moment 
come,  or,  if  it  comes  at  all,  shall  only  come  to  show 
its  hollowness ;  and  the  flush  dies  out  of  his  face,  he 
turns  pale  for  a  moment,  and  then  the  hand  is  at  the 
ear  again  that  he  may  not  lose  one  sweet  echo  of 
the  people's  shouts.  The  plodder  over  books,  the 
hoarder  of  mere  facts  who  never  gets  at  principles, 
catches  one  glimpse  of  the  land  where  principles  are 
to  be  the  only  wealth,  and,  with  just  a  passing  trem- 
ble of  dismay,  goes  back  again  to  piling  up  his  ant- 
hill. No  certainty  of  the  coming  abandonment  of 
gains  can  overcome  the  passion  for  acquisition  in 
the  soul  of  man. 

Surely  this  means  something.  It  must  mean  that 
the  passion  for  acquisition  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count, must  be  accepted  as  a  perpetual  fact,  and 
somehow  made  to  live  in  peace  and  co-operation 
with  the  other  fact  of  the  necessary  separation  from 
their  acquisitions  which  death  brings  to  men.  To 
put  these  two  truths  into  their  true  relation  to  each 
other,  to  let  neither  of  them  kill  the  other — this 
must  be  our  study.  For  truths,  we  know,  are  like 
the  wheels  in  a  machine.  They  are  fitted  and 
toothed  to  one  another.  If  they  are  kept  with  their 
teeth  properly  intertwined,  they  keep  each  other  in 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  77 

motion  and  help  each  other  work;  but  if  they  fall 
out  of  their  true  connection,  then  they  tear  each 
other  and  disturb  and  spoil  the  whole  machine.  To 
see  how  these  two  facts — the  fact  of  man's  passion 
for  acquisition  and  the  fact  of  man's  inevitable  loss 
of  that  which  he  acquires — fit  together  and  make  a 
strong  and  healthy  human  life:  this  will  be  our 
object. 

I  know  I  speak  to  thoughtful  men,  who  are  aware 
of  both  these  facts  in  their  own  active  lives.  You 
all  know  and  feel  in  some  way  the  human  desire  to 
gain  the  good  things  of  life ;  and  yet  you  all  know 
well  enough  that  those  good  things  will  hardly  be 
gained  before  you  will  have  to  give  them  up.  Gen- 
erally the  first  knowledge  is  most  vivid,  and  you  live 
in  its  sunshine.  But  every  now  and  then  the  second 
knowledge  sweeps  over  you  like  a  cloud  and  hides 
the  sun.  Will  it  not  be  a  gain  if  the  two  knowledges 
can  be  taught  to  take  each  other's  hands  and  walk 
together,  and  lead  your  life,  perpetually  aware  of 
both  of  them,  into  more  peaceful  and  so  more 
powerful  activity? 

Perhaps  we  can  reach  our  subject  best  if  we  think 
not  immediately  of  death,  but  of  some  other  con- 
ceivable event  which  might  be  seen  approaching,  and 
which,  when  it  arrived,  must  strip  from  every"  man 
his  earnings.  Suppose  for  instance  that  all  men 
could  foresee  that,  at  a  certain  (or  an  uncertain) 
future  time,  there  was  coming  a  great  triumph  of 
communism,  with  a  division  of  all  property  and  the 
abolishment  of  private  rights.  What  would  be  the 
result  of  such  anticipation?     I  suppose  that  there 


78  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

are  two  principal  results,  one  or  the  other  of  which 
we  should  see  in  different  men  according  to  their 
different  characters.  One  class  of  men  would  think 
only  of  getting  all  out  of  the  present  which  they 
could.  "Well,  since  so  soon  we  are  to  have  noth- 
ing," they  would  say,  "let  us  make  the  most  of 
what  we  can  have  now.  Let  us  enjoy  the  present 
to  the  full."  Another  class  would  be  so  wrapt  up 
in  the  prospect  of  the  coming  catastrophe  that  all 
chance  of  enjoying  the  present  would  be  ruined. 
"If  all  is  to  be  stripped  away,  what  is  the  use  of 
winning  anything?"  they  would  ask.  These  two 
classes  everybody  would  expect  to  see, — one  of 
them  the  class  that  tries  to  forget  the  coming  loss 
in  the  excess  of  present  joy,  the  other  losing  all 
sense  of  present  ownership  in  the  certainty  of  coming 
loss. 

But  think  about  it  a  moment,  and  see  if  there  is 
not  a  third  kind  of  man,  who  is  at  least  conceivable. 
In  that  community  which  is  living  under  the  shadow 
of  the  impending  communism  would  there  not  be 
here  and  there  a  wise  and  thoughtful  man  who  would 
be  saying  to  himself:  "I  cannot  live  only  in  the 
present,  and  I  cannot  be  apathetic,  in  despair.  I 
must  work.  I  must  accumulate.  But  what  is  there 
whicn  I  can  accumulate  which  the  communistic 
tyranny,  when  it  arrives,  cannot  disturb?"  And 
when  he  asks  that,  can  you  not  see  how  at  once 
there  must  open  to  him  all  the  great  regions  of  pro- 
founder  and  truer  possessions  which  no  redistribution 
of  property  can  take  away?  There  are  gains  won  in 
the  business  of  a  true  man's  life  which  would  be 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  79 

just  as  truly  his  after  the  mob  had  passed  through 
the  town,  and  turned  him  out  of  his  house,  and 
made  him  share  his  fortune  with  the  thieves.  There 
is  a  property  so  private  that  no  legislation,  no  revo- 
lution, can  disturb  it. 

Suppose  that  a  man  demanded  of  his  business 
that  it  should  furnish  him  with  that.  Suppose  that, 
out  of  all  his  gaining  and  spending,  he  compelled 
himself  to  win  breadth  and  loftiness  of  character, 
patience,  value  for  the  spirits  and  not  the  forms  of 
things,  a  soul  superior  to  the  very  ministries  and 
machineries  by  which  the  superiority  of  soul  was 
won ;  and  have  you  not  got  in  that  man  a  real  co- 
operation in  their  best  result  of  our  two  truths, — 
the  truth,  first,  that  man  must  accumulate,  and  the 
truth,  second,  that  the  things  which  he  accumulates 
he  must  part  with  by  and  by?  Picture  the  business 
man  thus  earning  wealth,  in  distinct  view  of  the  cer- 
tainty that  he  is  going  to  lose  it.  He  presses  each 
dollar  till  it  yields  him  moral  quality.  He  stows 
away  into  his  character  patience  and  perseverance. 
In  earning  wealth  he  learns  the  limits  of  what  wealth 
can  do,  and  so  a  justness  and  loftiness  of  soul  is 
bred  within  him.  By  and  by  comes  the  great  crash, 
and  when  men  look  to  see  him  stripped  as  naked  as 
his  most  thriftless  brethren,  behold !  the  very  loss 
of  his  property  has  only  made  it  more  evident  how 
thoroughly  he  is  still  the  possessor  of  all  the  moral 
qualities  which  came  to  him  in  the  winning  of  his 
property.  The  whirlwind  itself  seems  to  look  back 
at  him  amazed,  for,  where  it  expected  to  see  him 
lying  a  ruin   upon  the   ground,    there   he   stands, 


8o  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

stripped  of  his  leaves  indeed,  but  all  the  more  evi- 
dently alive  with  a  life,  rich  with  a  riches,  which  it 
is  in  no  power  to  destroy. 

Now,  try  to  carry  all  that  over  and  apply  it  to 
men's  anticipation  of  death.  Death  is  the  great 
communism.  It  levels  all  our  human  greatnesses. 
Here  they  are,  beggar  and  prince  to-day,  one  strut- 
ting over  velvet,  the  other  grovelling  in  the  mire ; 
to-morrow  both  together  ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to 
dust.  On  this  side  of  the  grave  are  scholar  and 
dunce,  one  crowned  with  all  the  honors  of  the 
schools,  the  other  wearing  life  out  in  a  drudgery 
only  better  than  the  brutes;  on  the  other  side, 
both  alike  in  the  common  ignorance  of  forgetfulness. 
How  natural,  how  familiar  all  that  sounds!  We 
have  heard  it  all  our  lives ;  and  oh,  how  superficial 
it  all  is!  How  it  ignores  everything  except  the 
most  manifest  and  material  of  human  acquisitions! 

Thank  God,  the  inequalities  of  wealth  are  not  to 
go  beyond  the  grave !  Thank  God,  the  rich  man's 
insolence  and  the  poor  man's  servility  alike  are  to 
be  known  no  longer  in  the  New  Jerusalem !  But 
the  rich  man's  self-control  and  the  poor  man's  self- 
respect — a  self-control  plucked  out  of  the  very  heart 
of  luxury,  a  self-respect  gathered  out  of  the  very 
mire  of  men's  contempt — what  has  the  grave  to  say 
to  them?  The  scholar's  love  for  truth,  the  unsel- 
fishness which  the  servant  of  the  people  has  learned 
in  his  long  years  of  applauded  or  unapplauded  pub- 
lic life, — when  these  shine  out  all  the  more  brightly 
in  the  Everlasting  Life,  just  because  the  special 
subject  of  the  scholar's  study  has  been  left  behind 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  8i 

among  the  outgrown  interests  of  earth,  and  the 
temporary  interests  which  engaged  the  powers  of 
the  public  man  have  been  drowned  in  the  crossing 
of  the  river, — shall  it  not  then  be  clear  enough  how 
the  truth  of  necessary  acquisition,  and  the  truth 
of  the  necessary  loss  of  the  acquired  thing,  have 
worked  together? 

And  this  is  the  result — a  deeper  acquisition,  an 
acquisition  of  character.  When  a  man  has  made  his 
life  render  that  to  him,  then  he  has  got  down  into  a 
deeper  region,  or  up  into  a  higher  one,  where  the 
words  which  David  spoke,  in  the  ordinary  middle 
region  of  human  experience  and  thought,  are  no 
longer  true.  He  has  come  into  that  higher  world 
where  death  has  lost  his  victory.  The  man  does 
carry  something  away  with  him  when  he  dieth.  The 
true  glory  of  his  life  does  follow  him.  What  was 
true  below  is  no  longer  true  when  the  man  has  risen 
to  the  larger  conception  and  larger  use  of  life. 

I  think  I  know  the  difficulty  which  will  suggest 
itself  in  view  of  thoughts  like  these.  It  will  seem  as 
if  the  perpetual  treatment  of  present  life  with  refer- 
ence to  the  life  which  is  to  come  would  give  a  sort 
of  unreality  to  living  which  would  destroy  all  its 
pleasure,  and  defeat  at  once  its  higher  and  its  lower 
purposes.  It  would  seem  to  threaten  us  with  that 
"other-worldliness,"  as  it  has  been  called, — that  loss 
of  the  best  uses  of  this  world  in  the  morbid  expecta- 
tion of  the  next,  which  has  been  often  alleged  by 
unchristian  people  to  be  the  natural  tendency  of 
Christianity. 

But  here  comes  in  a  truth  of  experience,  which 

6 


82  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  suggestive  indications  of  the  care  that 
God  has  for  the  good  growth  of  His  children.  I 
think  that  all  experience  bears  witness  that  the 
healthy  and  sincere  use  of  any  of  God's  blessings 
which  are  in  their  nature  temporary  and  partial,  has 
a  tendency  to  prepare  the  man  who  uses  them  for 
higher  fields  of  life  in  which  he  shall  have  outgone 
them  and  left  them  behind.  The  hearty  enjoyment 
of  a  bright  clear  day  makes  a  man  not  less,  but  more, 
ready  for  those  exacting  duties  in  which  the  sensi- 
bilities are  too  weak  to  support  us,  and  the  con- 
science must  be  summoned  to  its  bravest  work. 
The  grateful  and  loving  acceptance  of  pleasure  as 
the  gift  of  God  is  all  the  time,  unconsciously,  with- 
out the  happy  mortal's  thinking  of  it,  stocking  his 
life  with  the  faith  which  he  will  need  when  he  has 
to  leave  the  happiness  behind  and  go  forth  into 
some  dark  sorrow.  The  soul  which  God  allows  to 
bask  in  friendships  gathers  in  them  the  qualities 
which,  when  the  friendships  are  stripped  off  from 
it,  it  carries  with  it  into  the  unfriended  and  solitary 
years  which  He  beyond.  A  true  and  simple  child- 
hood ceases,  but  the  grown-up  man  wonders  to  find 
that  it  has  left  in  him  an  unexpected  faith  and 
strength  for  the  emergencies  of  manhood.  Every- 
where we  see  some  glimpses  of  this  gracious  law — 
that  he  who  lives  nobly  and  simply  and  devoutly  in 
any  condition  which  is  by  its  very  nature  temporary, 
accumulates  unconsciously  in  it  the  outfit  which  he 
is  going  to  need  for  the  higher  and  more  exacting  life 
into  which  he  is  by  and  by  called  to  pass. 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  83 

Now,  if  this  same  law  can  apply  between  the 
worlds,  do  you  not  see  what  its  results  will  be? 
Just  as  you  live  in  the  pure  pleasure  of  a  glorious 
day,  gratefully  and  simply  taking  its  joys  and  duties 
at  the  hand  of  God,  and  never  thinking  about  to- 
morrow, but  when  to-morrow  comes,  lo,  here  in  you 
is  the  health  which  you  never  sought,  but  which  you 
all  the  time  were  winning  on  that  glorious  yesterday ; 
— so  let  the  mortal  live  here  in  the  most  pure  and 
healthy  enjoyment  of  this  glorious  world,  let  him 
take  every  duty,  let  him  take  every  joy  in  the  most 
simple  loyalty  and  love,  not  thinking  of  a  world  to 
come,  thinking  only  of  this  world  and  of  how  full  it 
is  of  God,  and  of  how  good  it  is  to  live,  and  to  work, 
and  to  touch  these  lives  of  our  brethren  with  the 
delightful  contacts  of  our  different  relationships  all 
met  and  filled  out  with  the  most  faithful  faithfulness 
that  we  can  render ;  let  a  man  live  so,  and  then  some 
morning  let  the  gates  of  immortality  fly  open,  and 
the  freed  soul  pass  through  into  the  larger  life ;  and 
then  how  glorious  does  the  working  of  the  law  be- 
come. The  public  servant,  the  business  man,  the 
student,  the  mechanic — how  completely  he  has  left 
his  desk,  his  shop,  his  books,  his  tools  behind ! 
But,  as  he  stands  on  the  other  side,  for  a  moment 
almost  at  a  loss  for  them,  how  the  chorus  of  quali- 
ties which  has  been  trained  within  him  by  his  long 
service  lifts  up  its  voice  and  greets  him:  "Lo,  we 
are  with  you  still !  Lo,  we  have  crossed  the  river 
with  you  and  still  are  with  you !  We,  too,  are 
breathing  this  celestial  air,  and  we,  like  you,  are 
finding  ourselves  filled  to  our  noblest  and  completest 


84  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

being  by  it.  We  shall  be  ready,  we  who  were  with 
you  on  the  earth, — patience  and  courage,  and  hope 
and  truth  and  humbleness, — we  shall  be  ready  here 
for  all  the  larger  work  that  you  will  need  us  for." 

Can  you  imagine  that?  and  then  can  you  imagine 
that  man,  entered  on  his  immortality,  with  all  his 
company  of  earth-trained  helpers,  looking  back  to 
earth  and  seeing  those  whom  he  has  left  behind  still 
in  the  midst  of  this  intense,  delightful  life,  with  the 
river  still  uncrossed?  Can  you  not  hear  what  his 
voice  would  say  to  them?  "Be  pure  and  faithful," 
— so  the  dead  would  speak  to  the  living;  "love  God 
and  do  your  duty.  Enjoy  life  purely  and  faithfully. 
Do  not  think  of  Eternity  in  any  way  which  shall 
make  Time  less  full  of  eagerness  and  delight.  Be 
pure  and  faithful,  and  when  you  come  to  the  river 
all  that  you  need  to  have  go  over  will  go  over  in 
you.  And  you  will  never  miss  what  cannot  cross 
with  you,  but  must  be  left  behind  because  its  day  is 
over." 

It  is  not  hard,  I  am  sure,  to  imagine  that,  as  a 
liberated  human  spirit  spoke  those  words  to  the 
spirits  which  were  still  upon  the  earth,  still  in  the 
body,  he  would  be  conscious  of  a  double  joy :  first, 
of  a  joy  to  know  that  what  he  really  needed  in  eter- 
nity of  all  that  he  had  gained  on  earth — his  quali- 
ties and  character — were  with  him  still;  but  also, 
secondly,  another  joy  at  his  release  even  from  those 
things  in  many  of  which,  while  he  was  still  in  mortal 
life,  he  found  much  of  the  joy  of  living. 

Oh,  my  dear  friends,  are  there  not  times  when  all 
of  us  have  realized  that  there  is  another  tone  in 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  85 

which  those  words  of  David  about  the  dying  man — 
"He  carrieth  nothing  away  with  him  when  he 
dieth,"  meaning,  as  David  certainly  did  mean,  the 
mere  conditions  and  machineries  of  life, — that  there 
is  another  tone  in  which  those  words  of  David  may 
be  said,  a  tone  of  triumph  and  congratulation?  How 
many  there  are,  even  of  things  which  we  have  deeply 
loved  and  earnestly  enjoyed  of  which  we  feel  that 
this  life  has  given  us  enough,  and  that  we  do  not 
want  to  see  them  any  more  upon  the  other  side ! 
How  many  of  the  complicated  ways  of  business  and 
society,  much  as  our  hearts  are  bound  up  in  them 
now,  we  are  rejoiced  to  know  will  disappear  in  the 
simplicity  of  heaven !  How  often,  when  we  are  in 
the  midst  of  the  elaborate  conventionalities  of  social 
life,  or  planning  and  planning  how  to  make  and 
spend  our  money,  or  pondering  upon  the  complex 
workings  of  government,  or  sitting  on  a  charity  com- 
mittee, or  attending  a  general  convention,  the  words 
come  to  us  like  a  great  wave  of  comfort:  "When 
you  die,  you  shall  carry  nothing  of  all  this  away 
with  you  "  !  To  get  the  kernel  some  day  safely  out 
of  the  shell  and  throw  the  shell  away— who  does  not 
sometimes  long  for  that?  And  when  it  comes,  who 
does  not  dare  to  believe  that,  however  happy  the 
shell  may  have  made  him  in  its  growing,  it  will  be 
easy  enough  to  let  it  go  when,  in  its  going,  the 
kernel  which  has  grown  within  it  comes  forth  in  its 
preciousness  and  glory? 

Have  we  not  then  come  to  some  meeting  of  these 
two  truths — man's  ineradicable  love  of  acquisition, 
and   the  certainty  that  much  of  what  he  acquires 


86  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

must  be  speedily  abandoned?  Here  is  this  other 
truth — that  in  every  legitimate  acquisition  of  man,  if 
it  be  won  in  the  loftiest  and  truest  way,  there  is 
something  that  comes  into  the  man  himself,  which 
is  utterly  beyond  the  power  of  death  to  destroy, 
and  must  go  wherever  the  man  goes,  and  shall  last 
while  he  shall  last.  Out  of  the  king's  reigning 
something  comes  into  the  king,  out  of  the  beg- 
gar's begging  something  comes  into  the  beggar;  and 
that  shall  be  somewhere,  wherever  king  or  beggar 
is,  long  after  the  king's  throne  has  its  new  tyrant 
and  another  beggar  crouches  in  the  dust  where  this 
forgotten  one  used  to  crawl. 

And  the  issue  of  this  fuller  truth  in  practical  con- 
duct, as  I  have  tried  to  show,  will  be  that  the  truest 
life  must  be  that  which  most  healthily  enjoys  and 
most  faithfully  uses  the  earth  and  its  conditions. 
In  it  the  completest  preparation  is  being  made  for 
the  great  inevitable  change.  Surely  no  man  ever 
more  faithfully  lived  this  earthly  life  than  Jesus 
Christ  did,  and  yet  none  was  ever  readier  to  lay  it 
away  and  go  to  the  Father.  In  Him  the  two  prin- 
ciples worked  in  perfect  harmony.  And  all  the 
noblest  and  completest  natures  have  been  marked 
by  the  union  and  harmony  of  these  two  facts ;  first, 
that  they  most  intensely  enjoyed  and  worked  in 
life;  and,  second,  that  they  were  readiest,  when  the 
time  came,  to  change  this  life  for  what  we  call  "the 
other." 

The  relation  between  man  and  life — that  is  what 
we  have  been  studying.  How  low  and  base  and 
degrading  that  relation  may  be  made,  we  know  full 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  87 

well.  We  have  seen  it  all  our  lives.  We  can  see  it 
any  day.  Men  who,  when  they  first  touched  life, 
seemed  to  be  all  fresh  and  pure,  by  and  by  see  how 
they  are  walking  as  if  they  had  waded  through  mire, 
all  smirched  and  stained  and  blackened  with  the 
wickedness  which  they  have  attracted  out  of  life. 
Man  and  Life — how  we  come  to  feel  that  one  means 
the  power  of  being  tempted  and  soiled,  and  the  other 
means  the  great  reservoir  of  temptation  and  pollu- 
tion out  of  which  no  human  being  can  fail  to  gather 
degradation  as  his  time  goes  on.  But  there  come 
moments  when  we  are  able  to  take  larger  views, 
moments  when  we  are  able  to  look  back  to  the  first 
ideas  of  Man  and  Life  as  they  existed  in  the  mind 
of  God  at  the  beginning,  and  to  look  forward  to 
the  Restoration  or  the  Redemption  of  those  ideas 
by  Christ. 

Their  Redemption  by  Christ !  Do  we  know  fully 
what  that  means?  It  means  the  reclaiming  of  the 
world,  or  of  a  man,  for  the  completest  being  of 
which  he  is  capable,  by  the  power  of  Him  who 
manifested  the  Love  of  God  in  all  the  sincerity  and 
persuasion  of  His  deadly  suffering  upon  the  earth. 
You  belonged  to  God.  You  were  by  your  first  idea 
His  servant  and  His  child.  Christ  came  to  claim 
you  for  the  God  to  whom  you  belonged,  to  make 
you  know,  to  force  and  crowd  it  home  upon  you  so 
that  you  could  not  help  knowing,  that  you  were  His 
child  ;  and  then  to  turn  this  whole  world  into  a  great 
nursery  for  His  child's  education. 

If  that  could  be  completely  done,  if  you  and  the 
world  about  you  could  be  so  redeemed,  then,  is  it 


88  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

not  evident  that  all  this  which  I  have  been  trying  to 
describe  must  come  to  pass?  The  very  type  of  a 
being  living  in  the  present,  using  it  enthusiastically 
and  never  making  any  plans  beyond  it,  but  yet 
gathering  out  of  it  the  very  best  sort  of  preparation 
for  the  unopened  future,  is  found  in  the  happy  and 
obedient  child,  living  loyally  in  his  father's  house, 
and  gathering  every  day  into  his  nature  unconscious 
preparation  for  the  years  to  come.  What  does  the 
boy  of  fourteen  know  about  the  anxieties  and  cares 
of  forty?  When  does  he  stop  to  think  whether  he 
will  be  ready  for  the  cares  and  anxieties  of  forty, 
when  it  comes?  And  yet  when,  by  and  by,  he 
crosses  that  critical  line  which  seems  to  carry  him 
into  another  world,  it  is  what  he  has  gathered  un- 
consciously in  his  father's  house  that  he  carries  with 
him  to  be  his  equipment  in  the  untried  years. 

Now,  the  Redemption  of  Christ  makes  men,  as  I 
have  said,  know  that  they  are,  and  so  makes  them 
practically  to  be,  God's  children.  It  transforms  the 
world  into  God's  house.  What  it  does,  then,  for 
us,  is  to  make  us  repeat  in  our  life  this  experience  of 
childhood.  For  us,  too,  living  in  Christ's  Redemp- 
tion, each  present,  thankfully  accepted  and  con- 
scientiously used,  becomes  the  preparation  for  greater 
things  to  come.  Out  from  each  period,  into  the 
period  which  waits  beyond,  we  carry  the  personal 
qualities  which  have  been  born  in  us  as  we  lay  upon 
the  bosom  of  His  Fatherhood.  And  at  the  last, 
when  we  die,  the  leaving  of  all  earthly  circumstances 
behind  only  makes  more  absolutely  clear  to  us  that 
the  new  world  to  which  we  go  is  part  of  the  same 


INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS  89 

Father's  house ;  and  that  we  who  go  there  carry  our 
perpetual  childhood  to  the  same  Father  to  whom 
Christ  has  redeemed  and  reconciled  us  here. 

This  ought  to  come  with  great  assurance  and  com- 
fort to  those  of  you  who  have  watched  the  dying 
of  your  friends.  Some  busy  man,  right  by  your 
side,  in  the  full  current  of  activity,  has  seen  the 
inevitable  summons  and  dropped  the  tools  of  life 
and  gone  away.  The  day  after  he  is  buried,  you 
walk  through  his  empty  house.  There  is  all  that 
used  to  identify  him  to  you.  The  shelves  are 
crowded  with  the  books  he  loved.  The  furniture  is 
full  of  memories  of  him.  Signs  of  his  wealth  and 
tokens  of  his  taste  are  everywhere.  The  clothes  he 
wore  still  keep  his  shape.  The  instruments  with 
which  he  worked  have  hardly  yet  grown  cold. 
Some  friend  beside  you  says:  "Poor  fellow,  it  was 
very  hard  to  leave  all  this!  How  he  worked  for  it 
all!  How  he  enjoyed  it  all!  And  now  he  has  left 
it  all  behind !  David  was  right ;  when  he  died,  he 
did,  indeed,  carry  nothing  away." 

But  then,  if  you  have  got  hold  of  our  truth,  does 
not  your  heart  perhaps  remonstrate :  Nay,  for  this 
man  David  was  not  right;  David  was  wrong!  Did 
he  really  carry  nothing  away, — he  who  went  into 
the  mysterious  world  beyond,  rich  in  wisdom,  pa- 
tience, and  trust,  with  purity  that  had  been  tried 
and  whitened  in  the  fire,  with  a  judgment  enlarged 
and  a  soul  ripened  by  countless  struggles?  Has  he 
carried  nothing, — he  who  goes  wrought  and  kneaded 
through  and  through  with  the  certainty  that  he  is 
God's  child,  which  he  has  gained  out  of  a  thousand 


90  INDESTRUCTIBLE  POSSESSIONS 

quiet  communions  with  his  Father,  and  a  hundred 
terrible  emergencies  when  he  has  had  to  cling  to  his 
Father's  Fatherhood  with  desperate  hands?  Does 
he  carry  nothing — he  who  carries  the  new  self  which 
was  born  in  the  new  birth? 

There  are  times  when  the  old  chant  changes; 
when,  not  that  man  leaves  everything  behind  him, 
but  that  man  takes  everything  with  him,  becomes 
the  certainty  that  fills  our  souls  as  we  hear  the  step 
of  Death  coming  to  call  us  or  to  call  our  brethren 
away. 

How  terrible  that  certainty  is!  How  glorious 
that  certainty  is !  How  it  makes  any  patient  and 
conscientious  work,  as  one  tries  to  do  it  here  in 
Christ's  name,  shine  with  all  the  radiance  of  eter- 
nity! "Work  on,"  one  wants  to  cry  to  all  true 
workers,  "work  on  with  all  your  might.  No  matter 
whether  you  seem  to  succeed  or  seem  to  fail,  no 
matter  whether  men  give  you  praise  or  blame.  You 
are  gathering  character.  You  are  becoming  more 
and  more  a  child  of  God.  And  when  the  call  comes, 
though  the  work  must  all  be  left,  the  worker  will  go 
on  and  up,  carrying  with  him  all  that  the  grace  and 
goodness  of  God  has  made  him  be." 

May  the  hope  of  that  day,  and  of  all  that  lies  be- 
yond it,  strengthen  our  hearts  and  hands  when  they 
grow  weak ! 


VI. 

THE  NECESSITY   OF   THE   SOCIAL  LIFE. 

"Woe  to  him  that  is  alone  when  he  falleth,  for  he  hath  not 
another  to  help  him  up." — Ecclesiastes  iv.  lo. 

These  words  of  the  preacher  are  capable  of  a  low 
or  of  a  very  high  application.  We  may  read  them 
as  the  words  of  worldly  prudence,  the  exhortation 
to  every  man  to  make  to  himself  friends  of  the 
mammon  of  unrighteousness;  or  they  may  be  the 
utterance  of  the  profoundest  religious  philosophy, 
the  statement  of  how  God  Himself  has  bound  our 
lives  together  and  made  us  rest  on  one  another.  Of 
course  we  give  to  them  their  highest  meaning. 

And  the  words  begin  by  assuming  the  certainty 
that  every  man  will  fall  sometimes.  "Woe  to  him 
that  is  alone  when  he  falleth."  We  look  forward 
into  our  lives,  and  a  wise  prudence  compels  us  to 
recognize  that  there  will  certainly  come  times  when 
life  will  flag,  times  when  the  buoyancy  and  courage 
upon  which  we  rely  will  break,  when  over  some  one 
of  the  many  obstacles  that  lie  in  our  way  we  shall 
stumble.  We  need  not  be  gloomy  prophets.  We 
need  not  put  so  blankly  and  hopelessly  before 
ourselves  the  certainty  of  these  times  of  faltering 

91 


92     THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

courage  and  of  weakened  principle,  that  we  shall  be 
in  despair  and  not  try  to  do  anything  for  the  lives 
that  are  so  sure  to  meet  disaster.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  would  be  foolish  in  us  to  expect  an  even, 
level,  unbroken  future,  a  changeless  prosperity  and 
spiritual  progress  that  never  know  a  fall.  Surely 
our  darker  and  despondent  days  will  come,  our  days 
of  broken  resolution  and  of  feebler  will. 

And  when  we  thus  look  forward  to  them,  among 
the  questions  which  we  ask  ourselves  ought  to  be 
these:  "What  will  the  best  way  be  to  meet  those 
days?  How  shall  I  best  prepare  for  them?  How 
shall  I  best  recover  myself?  Will  it  be  best  for  me 
to  be  alone,  or  to  be  in  company  when  the  darkness 
comes?  Will  a  close  association  with  my  brethren 
help  me  up,  or  hold  me  down  with  all  their  extra 
weight,  when  I  have  fallen?" 

It  opens  a  wide  question  and  a  very  deep  one,  the 
whole  question  of  the  social  and  the  solitary  life. 
Here  are  certain  dispositions  always  drawing  us  to 
one  another.  Here  are  certain  dissatisfactions  al- 
ways drawing  us  away  from  one  another  and  making 
us  want  to  live  alone.  Here  is  the  sense  that  our 
brethren  make  safety  about  us  and  call  out  our  best 
powers  into  exercise.  Here  is  another  sense  that 
our  brethren  around  us  make  our  danger,  and  that 
our  best  powers  and  activities  often  spring  to  life 
and  do  their  work  when  we  are  separated  and  set 
all  by  ourselves.  Which  shall  we  follow?  The 
practical  answer  that  we  mostly  give  is  in  a  vacillat- 
ing life  which  divides  itself  almost  at  random  be- 
tween the  two  dispositions,  yielding  sometimes  to 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE     93 

one  and  sometimes  to  the  other,  as  the  feeling 
moves;  and  often  yielding  wrongly,  looking  often 
to  society  for  that  culture  which  only  solitude  can 
give,  and  also  often  seeking  in  loneliness  that 
strength  which  a  man  ought  to  get  out  of  the  com- 
pany of  his  fellow-men. 

Let  us  look  a  little  at  this  question  of  society  and 
solitude.  It  is  not  enough  to  give  the  easy  answer 
that  society  is  good  or  bad  according  to  whom  it  is 
composed  of;  to  be  with  good  men  is  good  for  us; 
to  be  with  bad  men  is  bad  for  us.  That  is  true,  of 
course.  But  still  the  difficulty  remains  that  the  so- 
cieties which  offer  themselves  to  us  are  not  thus 
blankly  good  or  bad.  They  are  all  mingled  and 
confused.  And  even  between  the  best  company 
and  solitude  the  question  is  always  an  open  one. 
How  far  is  it  best  to  fight  the  battle  of  one's  life 
alone,  and  how  far  is  it  good  to  identify  our  battle 
with  our  brethren's,  and  get  the  advantage  of  their 
strength,  even  with  all  the  disadvantage  that  it 
brings?  Surely  there  are  few  questions  which  we 
ever  meet  more  pressing  or  more  puzzling  than 
these. 

The  first  suggestion  of  an  answer  comes  from  our 
own  experience,  from  what  we  may  freely  appeal  to 
as  the  universal  experience  of  healthy-minded  men; 
which  is  that  whatever  there  is  of  good  in  us  has 
been  made  possible  and  has  been  preserved  by  the 
associations  with  our  fellow-men  which  have  filled 
up  our  life.  However  deeply  precious  may  seem 
the  things  that  have  come  to  us  when  we  were 
alone;   however   we   may  know  that  the  choicest 


94     THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

thoughts  and  truest  feelings  have  been  worked  out 
in  solitude;  everybody  is  certain,  as  he  takes  a 
large  look  back,  that,  on  the  whole,  if  he  had  been 
left  to  solitude  he  never  could  have  come  to  so 
good  life  as  he  has  reached  in  the  company  of  his 
brethren.  And  the  reason  why  he  thinks  so  is,  in 
large  part,  that  he  sees  that  in  his  darkest  times,  in 
the  falling  and  fallen  periods  of  his  life,  he  could 
not  have  arisen  from  the  depths  into  which  he  had 
been  cast,  he  would  have  stayed  at  his  worst,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  rescue  that  came  to  him  from 
his  fellow-men.  Perhaps  there  are  great  heights 
where  a  man  may  be  independent,  mountain-tops 
where  one  may  walk  in  solitude.  Perhaps  there  are 
exalted  moments  in  which  one  seems  to  live  his 
best,  and  not  to  need  companions;  but  what  we 
come  to  thank  our  fellow-men  most  for  is  the  way  in 
which  they  have  bridged  over  with  their  company 
the  uncertain  places  of  life,  and  brought  us  up  again 
when  we  were  demoralized  and  broken  down,  that 
we  have  not  been  alone  when  we  have  fallen,  but 
have  had  another  to  lift  us  up. 

For  what  is  it  that  keeps  a  man  down  when  he 
has  fallen  out  of  goodness  and  self-respect?  When 
the  spring  of  his  life  is  broken  and  the  fresh  hope- 
fulness of  the  manly  struggle  to  be  high  and  pure 
and  good  is  blurred  and  lost,  when  he  has  sinned 
and  the  burden  of  his  sin  is  lying  on  him,  what  is  it 
that  keeps  him  down?  What  hinders  him  from 
springing  back  again  into  the  strength  and  purity 
which  he  has  lost?  Mainly  these  things:  first,  his 
self-indulgence,  the  dreadful  indolence  and  force  of 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE     95 

habit  that  takes  possession  of  him;  secondly,  his 
loss  of  reputation,  the  feeling  that  nobody  expects 
or  thinks  anything  of  him  any  longer;  thirdly,  his 
conceit  and  affectation,  which  take  his  sin  and  dis-  - 
grace  and  trick  it  out  in  some  disguise  of  virtue  or 
brilliancy,  and  set  him  to  boasting  of  it.  Picture 
any  fallen  man,  a  man  who  used  to  be  brave  and 
good  and  sober  and  honest.  Now  he  has  gone. 
You  never  see  him  in  the  paths  of  reputable  people. 
Men  look  to  him  no  more  for  examples  of  upright 
living.  What  has  caused  all  this?  He  came  to 
some  bad  place.  He  sinned.  He  fell  into  disgrace. 
And  the  powers  that  have  held  him  down,  that  have 
stereotyped  and  perpetuated  his  disaster,  have  been 
these:  He  has  grown  self-indulgent  in  his  sin,  with 
no  enterprise  or  energy  to  rise  up  and  cast  it  off; 
he  has  ceased  to  care  what  men  think  about  him ; 
and,  having  lost  everything  else  to  be  proud  of,  he 
has  grown  proud  of  his  disgrace,  making  believe  to 
himself  that  it  is  honorable. 

Now  all  those  are  powers,  as  you  will  recognize, 
which  fasten  themselves  upon  a  man  in  solitude. 
There  he  becomes  self-indulgent,  morose,  and  af- 
fected. But  now  suppose  that  that  man,  when  he 
fell,  had  had  a  friend,  one  who  really  had  been  close 
to  him.  What  would  that  friend  have  done  for 
him?  or,  rather,  what  would  a  body  of  such  friends 
have  done  for  him,  surrounding  him  on  every  side, 
enclosing,  enshrining  his  tottering  life  ?  They  would 
have  shamed  and  encouraged  him  out  of  self-indul- 
gence. They  would  have  let  him  see  that  they  did 
care  for  him,  and  so  kept  him  from  being  reckless 


96     THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

about  reputation.  They  would  have  held  up  before 
him  the  truth  and  righteousness  from  which  he  had 
departed,  and  made  him  know  that  his  wickedness 
was  base  and  not  glorious.  Hope,  pride,  and  hon- 
esty,— these  are  what  they  would  have  given  him. 
These  are  what  your  friendships  have  given  you 
many  a  time,  and  kept  your  falls  from  being  fatal 
and  final,  and  held  you  to  recovery. 

This  is  the  reason  of  it.  Now,  that  which  is 
reasonable  and  capable  of  philosophic  explanation 
in  the  middle  orders,  in  the  mass  of  beings,  appears 
always  as  an  instinct  which  it  is  hard  to  explain,  both 
in  the  lower  beings,  who  seem  to  be  below  the  range 
of  its  influence,  and  in  the  highest  beings,  who  seem 
to  be  above  its  need.  Man  gets  a  clear  and  account- 
able help  out  of  the  companionship  of  his  fellow- 
men  in  his  darkened  and  weakened  times;  and  it  is 
good  to  see  how  this  impulse  of  companionship 
plays  freely  from  the  bottom  to  the  very  top  of  all 
life.  The  animals  crowd  close  together  when  the 
thunder  roars,  as  if  in  company  there  would  be 
safety.  And  when  Jesus  Christ  was  going  to  his 
agony  in  Gethsemane,  Retook  with  Him  Peter  and 
James  and  John.  It  is  the  social  impulse  running 
through  all  life,  and  making  each  try  to  appropriate 
for  his  own  the  strength  of  all. 

I  want  to  urge  on  all  of  you,  the  young  and  old, 
but  specially  the  young,  the  good,  nay,  the  neces- 
sity, of  social  life.  Do  not  yield  to  the  passion  for 
solitude.  Knit  your  life  to  your  brothers'  lives. 
Cultivate  every  true  relation  to  your  fellow-men. 
If,  when  things  are  going  wrong  with  you  either  by 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE     97 

misfortune  or  by  sin,  the  desire  springs  up  to  live 
alone,  to  get  away  from  men,  beware  how  you  in- 
dulge it.  You  will  certainly  grow  self-indulgent 
and  reckless  and  affected.  That  is  where  the  in- 
dolent, cynical,  headlong,  and  fantastic  men  are 
made.  Not  more  than  one  man  in  a  thousand,  per- 
haps not  so  many,  can  live  in  solitude  and  yet  be 
vigorous,  self-respecting,  simple.  It  needs  a  man 
of  such  wonderfully  exceptional  resource  and  truth- 
fulness to  be  shut  up  to  himself ! 

It  may  seem  as  if  this  were  not  the  counsel  that 
men  need.  "Rather  urge  solitude,"  you  say. 
"People  are  social  over-much.  They  grow  thin 
and  superficial.  Send  them  apart  to  think,  and  let 
them  dwell  alone  that  their  own  selves  may  be  de- 
veloped. There  is  too  much  society. ' '  But  so  often 
we  have  seen  the  man  in  his  misfortune  shut  himself 
away,  and  lose  the  fibre  and  recovery  of  life,  that 
there  does  seem  need  to  urge  the  preserving  and 
recuperative  power  of  a  true  social  life. 

A  true  social  life ! — remember  that  that  does  not 
mean  what  often  passes  for  society.  The  ordinary 
contacts  of  men  in  business,  whose  knowledge  of 
and  care  for  one  another  is  limited  to  their  mere 
business  interests,  who  never  talk  anything  but 
business ;  and  the  frivolous  meetings  of  what  we  call 
fashionable  life; — these  are  not  true  companionship. 
Out  of  their  very  midst  a  man  or  woman  falls,  and 
they  have  no  power  of  help.  The  dumb  company 
of  brute  with  brute  in  a  pasture  or  a  barnyard,  their 
stolid  huddling  to  each  other's  sides,  means  more  of 
real  association  than  much  that  we  call  social  life. 


98      THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

But  the  true  society,  in  which  man  really  meets  with 
man,  and  mind  with  mind,  and  heart  with  heart,  and 
character  with  character — that  is  another  thing,  a 
thing  you  cannot  do  without.  As  you  shun  the 
false,  so  seek  the  true.  Draw  really  near  your  fel- 
lows, and  do  not  live  alone. 

Let  me  refer  in  a  few  words  to  some  of  the  con- 
ditions in  which  the  tendency  to  solitude  is  apt  to 
assert  itself  most  strongly,  and  ask  you  to  observe 
how  bad  it  is.  It  often  becomes  strong  in  periods 
of  doubt.  When  truth  appears  unsettled  to  a  man, 
and  he  is  all  adrift,  how  apt  he  is  to  let  his  life  float 
away  into  some  solitary  creek,  and  there  to  moor 
it  and  let  it  toss  on  the  waves  till  it  decays.  He 
draws  off  from  the  crowd  of  busy  and  believing 
men,  and  spends  his  days  in  moody  uselessness, 
brooding  upon  himself.  Would  we  were  not  so 
familiar  with  the  sad  consequences !  First,  a  dull 
and  hopeless  indolence,  which  tells  itself  over  and 
over  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  seek  for  truth; 
then  a  definite  disregard  whether  men  think  that  it 
is  good  to  believe  or  not ;  and  then  an  affected  ec- 
centricity which  wears  its  skepticism  like  a  plume. 
Now  set  that  same  doubter  in  the  midst  of  men  and 
keep  him  there.  I  do  not  say,  let  him  take  their 
faith  for  his,  but  let  him  see  that  faith,  and  faith 
alone,  is  doing  work  and  making  men  brave  and 
happy  everywhere;  and  he  must  lose  at  least  the 
wretchedest  part  of  unbelief,  and  come  to  know 
that  truth  is  good,  and  to  be  sure  that  men  can  find 
it,  and  to  set  himself  with  new  courage  to  the 
generous  and  glorious  search. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE     99 

And  so,  when  a  man  undertakes  to  think.  Is  it 
not  true  that  all  solitary  thinking  has  a  tendency  to 
grow  hopeless  and  defiant  and  fantastic?  The  best 
and  truest  Christian  thoughts,  the  sweetest,  the 
healthiest,  the  best  balanced,  have  come  not  from  the 
hermits  or  the  monks,  but  from  the  heart  of  Chris- 
tian society  and  work ;  where  men  and  women  living 
Christian  lives  held  up  the  thinker  in  his  feebler 
moods,  and  made  him  earnest,  simple,  practical. 
No  man  by  nature  thinks  so  truly  and  so  surely  that 
you  could  send  him  off  alone,  and  let  him  come 
back  after  years,  and  not  be  sure  that  his  thoughts 
would  have  grown  self-indulgent,  conceited,  and 
distorted. 

Or,  take  the  great  emotional  epochs  of  one's  life. 
In  times  of  strong  emotion  there  comes  the  strong 
impulse  to  break  away  from  and  have  no  more  to  do 
with  a  world  whose  ordinary  doings  seem  to  be  so 
far  below  the  high  condition  to  which  we  have  been 
brought.  It  may  be  hard  for  you  to  recollect  it 
now,  but  you  have  seen  such  times.  In  great  and 
overwhelming  joy  it  comes.  What  can  this  dull 
earth,  living  its  placid  life  of  averages,  know  about 
this  leaping  delight  which  has  transfigured  every- 
thing for  you?  How  coldly  it  answers  to  your 
ecstasies !  These  people  take  your  hand  and  say  to 
you,  "I  am  glad  for  you";  but  what  has  their 
sober,  indifferent  gladness  to  respond  to  these  full 
veins  and  eager  hopes  of  yours? 

Or,  here  comes  sorrow,  and  the  impulse  then  is 
stronger  still.  This  ache  about  the  heart,  this  sense 
of  want  which  does  not  relieve  itself  in  any  effort  to 


loo  THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

restore  that  dear  thing  which  must  be  forever  want- 
ing, this  desolation  which  is  as  personal  and  all  your 
own  as  was  the  love  which  made  it  possible, — why 
should  this  stay  here  in  the  crowd,  where  the  kindest 
hands  touch  it  only  to  make  it  ache  a  little  more? 
Why  should  it  listen  to  a  sympathy  which  only 
brushes  and  wounds  its  surface?  Why  should  not 
such  a  sorrow  creep  away  and  hide  where  none  can 
gaze  upon  it,  nor  try  to  comfort  it ;  where  it  can  live 
on  its  own  luxury  of  woe? 

O  my  dear  friends,  I  know  how  natural  are  both 
desires ;  but  indeed  it  is  not  good  to  yield  to  either 
of  them.  Your  joy  and  sorrow  will  be  strong  and 
healthy  only  as  you  keep  them  among  your  brethren. 
Do  not  try  to  carry  them  away.  It  is  no  superficial 
impulse  which  sometimes  drives  the  very  happy  or 
the  very  sorrowful  into  the  presence  and  the  com- 
pany of  men.  There,  their  happiness  and  sorrow 
are  held  in  place,  held  firm  and  upright,  so  that  the 
new  life  which  grows  about  them  grows  straight  and 
true.  Both  into  the  Mountain  of  Transfiguration 
and  into  the  Garden  of  Agony  Christ  took  with  him 
Peter  and  James  and  John;  and  surely  He  took 
them  not  for  their  sake  alone  but  also  for  His  own. 

So  everywhere  dread  and  escape  a  lonely  life. 
Even  the  frivolous  companionships  of  men  have  a 
humanity  about  them  which  is  preservative,  and  are 
better  than  solitude.  The  worst,  certainly  the  most 
persistent  and  ineradicable,  of  vices,  are  those  which 
men  conceive  and  execute  alone.  It  is  the  social 
life  that  holds  the  soul  in  its  true  place.  I  know 
you  will  not  think  that  I  have  pleaded  in  behalf  of 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE    loi 

social  life  just  as  it  is,  in  behalf  of  what  you  call 
Society,  with  all  its  follies  and  its  falsenesses,  but 
in  behalf  of  something  far  deeper  and  far  higher. 

And  now  we  want,  if  we  can,  to  separate  these 
two — the  ideal  and  the  real  society — and  see  if  we 
can  tell  at  all  how  the  man  who  must  live  with  his 
fellow-men  may  find  the  way  of  living  with  them 
that  shall  be  most  unmixed  with  harm.  If,  then, 
we  try  to  estimate  the  tendencies  of  social  life,  I 
think  that  the  one  which  would  strike  us  all  most 
generally  would  be  its  disposition  to  produce  uni- 
formity, to  keep  at  once  the  bad  from  sinking  as 
low,  and  the  good  from  rising  to  as  lofty  a  height, 
as  would  be  the  case  if  their  lives  were  wholly  by 
themselves  and  wholly  free.  Social  life  is  some- 
thing like  a  sheet  of  ice  upon  the  surface  of  a  pond. 
It  holds  up  the  stones  which  are  frozen  in  it  so  that 
they  shall  not  sink,  and  it  holds  down  the  light,  am- 
bitious particles  so  that  they  shall  not  start  up  and 
soar  away  into  the  clouds.  As  we  look  round  upon 
the  actual  life  of  society,  can  we  not  all  see  both  of 
these  powers  at  work?  We  shall  see  some  men  of 
whom  we  feel  sure  that,  if  the  restraints  and  decen- 
cies of  social  life  were  broken  up,  they  would  drop 
like  lead.  They  are  held  out  of  wickedness  by  the 
standards  and  habits  of  the  times  and  places  where 
they  live.  And  then  there  are  other  men  who,  you 
fear,  are  held  back  from  any  great  and  venturesome 
enterprise,  from  any  exceptional  characteristic  vir- 
tue, by  these  same  restraints.  If  they  were  living 
alone,  you  feel  certain  that  they  would  break  out 
into   lofty    thoughts   and   blaze   into   original   and 


I02   THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

splendid  works,  which  are  impossible  here  in  this 
average  of  life. 

Very  often  this  equalizing,  levelling  power  of 
social  life  vexes  and  burdens  us.  It  gives  an  unreal 
look  to  people's  virtues.  Who  knows  whether 
they  are  essentially,  intrinsically  good?  Who  knows 
whether  they  be  not  stones  which,  if  the  ice  were 
melted,  would  fall  and  sink?  And  it  leaves  us  al- 
ways in  doubt  how  much  we  may  be  losing  in  the 
remarkable  men  or  actions  which  society  is  stifling. 
We  have  this  same  feeling  about  ourselves.  We  are 
not  doing  our  worst;  and  though  our  best  may  not 
be  much  we  are  not  doing  even  that.  We  are  living 
a  level  decency,  a  tame  monotony  and  uniformity. 
Society  seems  to  be  pressed  flat  and  thin  between 
two  great  hands;  one  pressing  up  from  beneath  and 
keeping  the  failures  of  society  from  falling  very  low ; 
the  other  pressing  down  from  above,  and  keeping  the 
saints  and  heroes  of  society  from  rising  very  high. 

Do  you  recognize  the  description?  And  what 
shall  save  us  from  the  evil  influence  without  losing 
for  us  the  good?  What  shall  set  us  free  to  be  our 
best,  and  yet  preserve  the  power  which  keeps  us 
from  being  our  worst?  Not  a  moody  retirement,  a 
selfish  isolation,  but  a  higher  consecration ;  not 
solitude,  but  some  companionship  higher  and  larger 
than  our  companionship  with  fellow-man,  and  yet 
including  it,  not  inconsistent  with  it.  And  that 
must  be  a  consecration  to  and  a  companionship  with 
God.  Sometimes,  unless  our  lives  have  been  ex- 
ceptionally unhappy,  we  have  seen  a  man  or  woman 
who  seemed  to  us  to  almost  realize  an  ideal  of  living; 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE    103 

some  one  who  lived  in  the  world  and  yet  was  not  its 
slave,  who  seemed  to  get  out  of  society  all  the  good 
it  had  to  give,  and  leave  its  harm  behind.  While 
other  men  said,  "  This  is  all  worthless  and  rotten," 
and  went  off  to  crunch  the  crust  of  their  own  soli- 
tude, he  staid  where  they  had  fled  and  ate  the  food 
which  they  called  poison  and  throve  upon  it.  It 
seemed  as  if  for  him  the  upward  pressure  on  society 
was  kept,  so  that  it  was  a  constant  safeguard  to  him ; 
and  the  downward  pressure  was  removed,  so  that  he 
could  always  freely  go  forth  and  be  his  best. 

You  who  know  it  most  thoroughly  will  bear  me 
witness  that  there  are  not  many  such  men  or  women 
in  our  social  life.  But  there  are  some ;  and  what  is 
their  secret?  How  does  it  come  that  they  move 
free  and  erect  where  we  go  slavishly  crouching?  Is 
it  not  simply  this :  that  over  and  above,  surround- 
ing and  including  all  their  life  with  fellow-men,  there 
is  a  life  with  God?  That  consecration  overrules 
every  devotion  to  society.  All  social  relations 
come  as  His  helps  and  ordinances;  and  so,  just  as 
the  business  man,  doing  his  business  for  a  purpose 
beyond  his  business,  gets  from  his  business  its  rich 
cultures,  and  goes  unpoisoned  by  its  lower  influ- 
ences; so  the  man  or  woman  of  society,  living  a  life 
with  God  above  and  round  the  life  with  fellow-men, 
finds  in  this  last  a  steady  support  and  help,  and  yet 
never  a  restraint  to  bind  the  soul  from  any  most 
ambitious  and  characteristic  flight  to  which  God 
beckons  it. 

This  is  the  secret.  This  was  what  made  the  social 
life  of  Jesus  Christ  the  absolutely  perfect  type  of  a 


I04   THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

man's  living  with  his  fellow-men.  He  came  as  close 
to  them  as  possible;  but  always  He  was  closer  to 
His  Father.  He  loved  them,  but  He  loved  God 
more,  and  them  in  God.  He  loved  the  places  where 
they  gathered,  but  when  He  sat  among  them  in  the 
very  centre  of  their  densest  crowds,  through  the 
people  who  pressed  around  Him  there  came  like  an 
unseen  ether  the  subtler  spiritual  presence  of  God. 
It  was  not  that  He  sat  there  touching  them  but  not 
thinking  about  them,  present  in  body  but  absent  in 
the  spirit.  He  was  close  to  them ;  closer  than  man 
ever  came  to  men.  But  through  them  came  to  Him 
the  farther  and  deeper  companionship  of  God.  And 
so  the  result  was  that,  while  they  helped  His  life, 
they  never  hampered  it ;  while  from  them  and  His 
work  for  them  He  drew  the  stimulus  that  kept  Him 
from  discouragement.  He  constantly  outwent  them. 
All  was  free,  upon  the  upper  side,  for  Him  to  pass 
out  into  the  company  of  God. 

I  think  that  this  should  be  the  picture  of  all  social 
life.  I  have  said  that  you  ought  not  to  live  alone. 
Indeed  you  ought  not.  You  ought  to  live  with  your 
brethren,  as  close  to  them,  as  clearly  in  the  midst,  as 
you  can  get.  But  to  live  with  them  rightly,  you 
must  have  the  secret  which  Christ  had,  the  secret  of  a 
companionship  with  God  surrounding  and  pervading 
all  your  companying  with  your  brethren.  Unless 
you  have  that,  you  will  be  bound  by  the  society 
that  saves  you ;  and  while  your  social  life  preserves 
you  from  flagrant  wickedness,  it  will  also  imprison 
you  from  active  and  enterprising  goodness. 

And  here  comes  in  a  word  upon  the  other  side,  a 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE    105 

word  to  those  who  make  as  well  as  to  those  who  re- 
ceive the  influences  of  social  life.  It  is  the  object 
of  true  social  life  to  keep  men  from  sin,  and  to  help 
them  to  their  best  development.  It  is  a  question 
for  you  all  to  ask  how  far  social  life,  as  it  exists 
among  us,  is  doing  both  these  things.  That  it  is 
doing  the  first  to  some  good  extent,  I  freely  grant. 
It  is  setting  the  weak  wills  and  unstable  passions  of 
many  young  people  into  the  stability  of  its  fixed 
standards,  and  saving  them  from  flagrant  vice  by  its 
prescriptive  decencies.  Is  it  doing  the  other  thing 
as  well?  Is  it  helping  every  character  to  its  own 
best  development?  Is  it  so  free  upon  the  upper  side 
that  any  man  or  woman  fired  by  some  new  impulse 
to  do  a  work  for  God  that  is  new,  fresh,  sincere,  and 
personal  may  do  it  with  the  cordial  encouragement 
of  a  society  that  delights  to  see  any  man  lead  the 
way  to  some  goodness  better  than  its  own?  As 
society  stamps  some  vices  as  disgraceful,  has  it  no 
tendency  to  stamp  some  virtues  as  quixotic?  As 
one  young  person  after  another  comes  into  it,  is  he 
met  at  its  door  by  the  spirit  of  the  society  which  he 
is  entering,  saying  to  him:  "You  must  not  do  foul 
and  dishonest  things  here,  for  they  are  disgraceful ; 
but  you  may  be  just  as  good,  as  pure,  as  truthful, 
as  Christlike  as  you  will,  and  we  will  like  you  all  the 
better."  Is  it  not  rather  a  spirit  saying  something 
like  this:  "You  must  not  lie  or  steal  or  be  wantonly 
foul  here,  for  it  is  vulgar;  but,  just  as  much,  you  must 
not  be  overgood,  nor  say  too  much  of  Christ,  nor 
think  too  much  of  God,  nor  strike  any  new  or  origi- 
nal note  of  manliness  and  truth,  for  it  is  troublesome. 


io6   THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

Here  are  our  iron  plates,  indicating  the  greatest 
virtue  and  the  greatest  vice  allowable.  Lay  yourself 
here  between  them,  and  the  softer  you  are  the 
sooner  we  will  press  you  into  shape."  It  becomes 
those  who  have  influence  and  leadership  in  our 
society,  to  ask  which  of  these  is  the  greeting  with 
which  the  newcomer  is  welcomed  to  the  coveted 
and  crowded  halls. 

All  that  I  have  said  about  life  in  general  has  its 
peculiar  application  to  the  Christian  life.  There, 
too,  there  is  a  solitary  and  a  social  way  of  living; 
and  there,  too,  the  social  life  is  necessary  for  the 
fullest  health  and  steadiness,  A  man  becomes  a 
Christian.  The  Bible  calls  that,  as  you  know,  his 
being  "born  again."  His  life  begins — the  life  with 
Christ,  the  life  in  God.  How  shall  he  live  that  life — 
alone,  as  if  there  were  no  soul  but  his  attempting  it ; 
drawing  its  strength  and  its  supply  only  out  of  its 
own  personal  relations  with  its  great  Supplier? 
Sometimes  such  solitude  is  forced  upon  the  Chris- 
tian. Sometimes  the  world  of  fellow-believers  seems 
to  fall  away  and  leave  him  travelling  alone  a  road 
that  seems  to  stretch  itself  on  and  on  as  if  no  feet 
had  ever  trod  that  path  before  him.  But  the  Chris- 
tian life  was  not  meant  to  live  in  such  a  solitude  for- 
ever, nor  is  it  suited  to  it.  It  is  a  social  life.  All  its 
movements  suggest  and  prophesy  a  brotherhood. 
That  Brotherhood  of  Believers  is  the  Christian 
Church. 

Now,  the  Christian  Church  is  to  the  single  disciple 
what  all  society  is  to  the  solitary  man,  only  upon  a 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE    107 

higher  plane.  We  have  said  that  society  keeps  men 
from  indolent  self-indulgence,  from  defiant  reckless- 
ness, and  from  affectation ;  and  that,  the  more  I 
watch  it,  seems  to  me  just  what  the  Church  does  for 
the  Christian.  You  are  a  servant  of  Christ.  I  may 
believe  it,  though  you  never  said  it,  though  your  faith 
never  took  any  of  those  great  sacramental  utterances 
which  would  send  it  in  to  swell  the  chorus  of  all  the 
Christian  faith  in  all  the  ages.  You  say,  "Why 
should  I  take  any  place  in  the  visible  Church? 
What  have  I  to  do  with  Baptism,  Confirmation, 
Communion?"  It  ought  to  make  you  solemn  when 
you  remember  how  earnestly,  how  impressively, 
how  lovingly,  in  the  very  last  precious  moments  of 
His  precious  life,  your  Lord  commanded — nay, 
begged — you  to  do  what  you  have  never  done.  It 
ought  to  stir  your  conscience  when  you  see  this 
world,  which  needs  your  Christian  influence,  robbed 
of  it  by  your  silence.  But  I  put  all  that  aside.  I 
speak  to  you  only  of  yourself.  If  this  unuttered 
faith  of  yours  is  always  growing  sluggish,  losing  its 
manly  courage,  making  excuses  for  itself;  if  it  is 
self-asserting,  scornful  of  the  judgments  and  holy 
standards  of  the  world's  long  Christian  experience; 
if  it  loves  eccentricity  and  affects  singularity;  be 
sure  here  is  what  you  need, — to  set  that  feeble,  flut- 
tering, fantastic  faith  of  yours  into  the  Body  of  the 
Faith  which  is  historic,  old  as  the  Lord's  own  words, 
and  yet  forever  new  as  the  experience  of  the  last 
young  believer, — to  put  your  solitude  into  the  safety 
of  a  society,  to  enshrine  your  Christianity  in  the 
Church. 


io8    THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE 

The  Church,  like  all  true  society,  is  strength,  but 
it  is  not  restraint.  If  she  becomes  restraint,  she 
loses  her  true  character.  The  ideal  Church  is  one 
that  shall  hold  her  children  strongly  on  the  lower 
side,  and  set  them  free  as  heaven  on  the  upper  side; 
keep  them  that  they  do  not  fall  into  sin,  but  hold 
her  doors  wide  open, — nay,  cast  her  roof  away  that 
they  may  rise  to  any  unexpected  goodness  or  truth 
to  which  their  Lord,  for  whom  she  holds  them,  may 
summon  them.  For  the  strength  and  safety  of  the 
faith  you  have,  for  the  hope  and  promise  of  the 
higher  faith  that  you  might  have,  the  higher  life  that 
you  might  live,  I  stand,  as  it  were,  at  the  door  of 
that  Church,  and  in  the  name  of  your  Master  and 
mine,  I  invite  you  to  enter  in. 

We  look  around,  and  all  the  world  is  full  of  fel- 
lowship. Solitude  is  everywhere  unnatural  and  bad. 
All  things  seek  their  companionships.  The  atoms 
gravitate  to  masses  everywhere.  And  so  men  seek 
each  other.  The  impulse  is  so  superficial  often ;  but 
it  might  be  so  profound !  Let  us  not  trifle  with  so 
vast  and  universal  a  desire  as  this  which  brings  us 
into  constant  fellowship.  Not  for  mere  pastime  or 
amusement,  not  by  vague  instinct,  but  by  reason- 
able purpose,  let  us  have  to  do  with  each  other's  life. 
Living  in  society,  yet  always  keeping  clear  our  own 
personality  within  all,  and  the  higher  companionship 
of  God  around  all ;  helping  and  being  helped ;  steady- 
ing ourselves  on  others,  and  helping  up  others  as 
they  fall,  while  all  together  we  are  going  on  to  Christ ; 
— if  that  should  come,  all  the  old  questions  between 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE    109 

society  and  the  Church  would  be  settled  forever. 
Such  a  society  as  that  would  be  the  Christian  Church. 
We  could  not  be  too  deeply  in  the  very  centre  of  a 
society  like  that.  Its  light  would  be  the  present 
glory,  its  music  the  present  voice,  of  God ;  and  al- 
ready in  this  city  of  the  earth  we  should  be  living  in 
the  New  Jerusalem. 


VII. 
LIVING    EPISTLES. 

"Ye  are  our  epistle,     .     .     .      known  and  read  of  all  men." — 11. 

Corinthians  iii.  2. 

"To  be  is  more  than  to  seem," — so  runs  the  sub- 
stance of  many  maxims  which  are  faithfully  taught 
to  the  young  as  they  go  forth  into  life,  and  with 
which  we  both  rebuke  ourselves  and  console  our- 
selves as  need  requires.  No  doubt  the  substance  of 
such  maxims  is  absolutely  true.  No  doubt  it  is  de- 
sirable that  they  should  be  constantly  repeated. 
The  condition  of  a  nature,  not  the  impression  which 
the  nature  makes  on  other  people,  is  the  thing  of 
primary  importance,  the  thing  on  which  attention 
must  be  fastened. 

And  yet  such  maxims  do  not  tell  all  the  truth. 
Always  subordinate  to  our  Being,  our  Seeming  has 
its  true  importance.  What  we  are  in  ourselves 
comes  first ;  then  what  we  are  in  relation  to,  in 
influence  upon,  our  fellow-creatures  demands  its 
measure  of  regard.  The  outward  movement,  the 
expression  of  that  which  is  essential,  is  too  universal 
not  to  require  our  thought.  The  shining  of  the 
sun,  the  flowing  of  the  river,  the  singing  of  the 
birds,  fill  the  whole  natural  world  with  utterance. 


LIVING  EPISTLES  in 

In  ordinary  human  life  action  stands  waiting  at  the 
gates  of  every  thought  and  of  every  spiritual  con- 
dition, to  make  proclamation  of  it  and  to  carry  it 
forth  in  visible  result. 

When  we  come  to  the  Supreme  Being,  it  is  truest 
there.  God  is  and  God  speaks.  Creation  was  His 
utterance.  "I  Am,"  He  calls  Himself  in  His  divine 
content.  And  yet,  "Hear,  O  Israel,"  He  cries; 
"His  goings  forth  have  been  of  old,  from  everlast- 
ing." Never  a  time  in  all  the  past  eternity  when 
that  which  supremely  Is  has  not  spoken  and  sent 
Himself  abroad. 

All  this  comes  up  to  us  when  we  hear  St.  Paul 
talking  about  his  epistles.  He  is  so  absolutely 
healthy,  so  absolutely  true,  that  the  necessity  of 
utterance  is  immediate  and  strong  in  him.  As  soon 
as  he  believes  he  speaks.  He  is  incapable  of  the 
selfishness  or  the  affectation  which  would  shut  his 
thought  up  in  himself.  So  he  tells  it,  with  a  human 
impulse;  and  to  Corinth  and  Ephesus  and  Philippi 
and  Rome  his  letters  go  abroad.  The  letter  was 
not  then  what  it  is  now.  To  write  a  letter  then  was 
a  more  serious  thing  than  it  has  since  become.  Let- 
ters were  then  more  rare  and  stately.  But  the  im- 
pulse which  sent  them  was  the  same.  The  thousand 
million  letters  which  in  a  single  year  go  flying 
through  our  post-offices, — what  are  they  but  the  ut- 
terance of  man's  necessity  of  expression.  It  is  in 
man's  nature.  Because  it  is  in  his  nature  it  has 
embodied  itself  in  his  habits  —  the  necessity  of 
utterance. 

Sometimes  we  wonder  whether  the  cheap  postage 


112  LIVING  EPISTLES 

and  the  hourly  mails  are  good.  We  let  ourselves 
imagine  the  enormous  frivolity,  the  enormous  sor- 
didness,  the  enormous  vice,  which  run  in  the  chan- 
nels of  the  post-ofifices  through  the  land ;  and  then 
we  shudder  and  draw  to  ourselves  pictures  of  a  life  of 
self-control  and  self-containment,  developing  its  own 
thoughts  and  growing  in  the  quiet  richness  of  itself. 
But  we  know  that  we  are  wrong.  Better  too  much 
utterance  than  too  much  repression.  The  thing  you 
consciously  refuse  to  tell  lies  like  a  burden  on  your 
life.  Withheld  knowledge  is  a  dull,  heavy  weight. 
It  lies  in  the  doorway  out  of  which  it  ought  to  pass, 
and  hinders  the  natural  exits  and  entrances.  And 
so  the  cheap  postage  and  the  multitude  of  post- 
oflfices  are  good,  in  spite  of  the  foolishness  and 
viciousness  to  which  they  offer  easy  circulation. 

Everything  which  is  true  and  vital  was  in  Christ 
and  in  the  beginnings  of  His  Gospel  and  this  epistle. 
Impulse  unmistakably  is  there.  He  wrote,  indeed, 
no  letters.  There  is  no  sign  that  what  now  occupies 
so  large  a  part  of  the  lives  of  many  men,  the  putting 
of  pen  to  paper,  ever  came  into  His  life  at  all.  But 
He  was  always  seeking  utterance.  From  the  time 
He  bursts  from  the  home-life  at  Nazareth  until  He 
leaves  His  last  message  in  the  ears  of  His  apostles 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  He  is  always  sending  forth 
that  Self  of  His  which  was  not  for  Itself  but  for  the 
world.  "Go  ye  and  teach  all  nations," — so  at  the 
last  He  gave  His  own  spirit.  His  own  conception  of 
what  the  work  of  life  under  the  Gospel  was,  to  His 
disciples. 

How   those   disciples   took    it  up  we   know  full 


LIVING  EPISTLES  113 

well.  They  never  for  an  instant  had  the  idea  that 
any  truth  they  learned  or  any  achievement  which 
they  made  was  for  themselves  alone.  All  the  sel- 
fish luxury  of  spiritual  life  they  never  dreamed  of. 
The  spring  poured  out  its  streams  immediately.  The 
star  was  radiant  on  the  instant  that  it  caught  the  sun. 

We  cannot  doubt,  indeed,  that  in  the  lives  of  the 
apostles  there  were  some  deep,  rich  moments  in 
which  their  souls  dwelt  in  contented  wonder  and 
rapture  on  the  love  and  greatness  of  their  Lord. 
Between  the  hurried  journeys,  or  when  the  crowd  of 
suppliants  for  help  had  ceased  for  a  few  moments, 
or  when  the  prison  gates  were  shut  at  night,  there 
must  have  come  moments  when  they  sat,  as  it  were, 
hand  in  hand  with  Jesus,  and  dwelt  in  pure  delight 
upon  the  friendship  which  was  between  their  souls 
and  His. 

And  yet,  even  then,  the  Christ  whom  they  com- 
muned with  was  the  whole  world's  Christ.  The 
walls  within  which  they  sat  and  which  grew  bright 
with  the  assurance  of  His  presence,  grew  also,  with 
that  brightness,  transparent,  and  let  them  see  the 
waiting  humanity  outside.  And  so,  out  of  the 
chambers  of  their  rapture  came  the  rich  letters  which 
have  been  the  treasure  of  the  Christian  world.  It  is 
not  evident  of  even  one  of  those  letters  that  it  looked 
beyond  the  occasion  for  which  it  first  was  written. 
St.  Paul  had  his  word  to  say  to  Rome  or  Corinth, 
and  he  sat  in  his  cell  or  in  his  inn  and  wrote  it  with 
all  its  loving  messages,  with  all  its  personal  touches ; 
and  some  traveller  who  happened  to  be  going  that 
way  put  it  in  his  satchel ;  and  by  and  by  it  was  read 

8 


114  LIVING  EPISTLES 

in  some  upper  chamber  where  the  little  company  of 
the  disciples  met.  It  was  kept  sacred.  It  was  held 
close  to  the  disciples'  hearts.  Every  word  in  it  was 
weighed  and  studied ;  and  by  and  by  when  St.  Paul 
was  gone,  and  they  could  see  his  face  no  longer,  it 
and  the  other  Epistles  which  he  had  written  to  other 
churches  were  brought  together  and  became  his  per- 
petual utterance  to  all  the  Christian  ages, —  a  true 
part  of  the  Bible,  the  world's  Book.  It  was  his  ut- 
tered faith.  In  it  he  tells  you  and  me  to-day,  as 
he  told  them,  about  his  Saviour,  his  conversion,  his 
faith,  his  heaven. 

There  is  no  evidence,  I  say,  that  St.  Paul  antici- 
pated this.  If  he  should  come  back  here  to-day, 
and  go  to  that  Book  and  turn  its  pages,  and  read 
his  Epistles  in  this  modern  language  of  a  world  of 
whose  existence  he  was  ignorant,  he  might  be  sur- 
prised. "Here  is  what  I  wrote  from  my  dungeon  in 
Rome  to  the  Ephesians,"  he  would  say;  or,  "I  re- 
member when  I  wrote  from  Athens,  after  I  came 
back  from  Mars  Hill,  these  words  to  my  good  friends 
at  Thessalonica. ' '  They  would  come  back  to  him  as 
a  man  remembers  what  he  has  sent  out  from  him- 
self, and  what  so  truly  is  himself  that  it  never  ceases 
to  be  his ;  and  he  recognizes  it  and  claims  it  when 
he  sees  it  again.  "Paul's  Epistles,"  he  would  see 
them  called,  and  he  would  gladly  own  them ;  but 
they  would  almost  seem  to  be  claiming  and  borrow- 
ing the  title  from  other  utterances  of  his  to  which  he 
had  himself  long  ago  given  that  name. 

For  here,  in  our  text,  St.  Paul  uses  a  word  with 
which  the  world  has  been  long  familiar,  but  uses  it 


LIVING  EPISTLES  115 

of  something  different  from  that  to  which  it  has 
been  commonly  applied.  "Paul's  Epistles,"  we 
say ;  and  instantly  we  think  of  these  well-known  let- 
ters which  are  in  the  Bible.  But  they  are  not  what 
St.  Paul  himself  had  in  his  mind,  at  least  not  in 
these  words.  His  epistles,  as  he  thinks  of  them, 
are  men.  "Ye  are  our  epistles,"  he  declares.  It 
was  not  upon  paper  but  upon  souls,  on  characters 
and  not  upon  waxen  tablets,  that  he  meant  to 
inscribe  the  messages  he  had  to  give. 

Let  us  see  what  this  striking  idea  of  St.  Paul  in- 
volves. In  the  first  place  it  is  certainly  suggestive 
with  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  message  with  which 
his  Epistles  were  entrusted ;  for  the  character  of  a 
communication  must  always  dictate  and  decree  the 
nature  of  the  medium  through  which  it  shall  be 
communicated. 

This  law  is  universal,  and  its  applications  and  de- 
velopments are  full  of  interest.  In  literature  it  is 
the  source  of  all  that  we  call  "style."  The  com- 
mon thought  must  clothe  itself  in  plain  and  homely 
and  familiar  words.  The  grander  and  loftier  con- 
ception creates  for  itself  a  worthy  vesture  and  moves 
in  the  glory  of  some  picturesque  and  stately  phrase. 
Some  things  can  be  fitly  told  only  in  verse,  others 
only  in  prose,  and  by  and  by  you  pass  beyond  what 
language  has  the  power  to  express  at  all. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  music  and  of  art?  There 
is  that  which  the  instrument  can  tell  which,  after  the 
instrument  has  ceased,  you  know  has  been  said  to 
you,  of  which  you  are  sure  that  while  you  sat  and 
listened  it  was  becoming  your  possession,  yet  which 


ii6  LIVING  EPISTLES 

you  are  powerless  to  give  an  account  of  in  any  words 
that  are  any  way  adequate  or  fit. 

Other  messages  come  to  you  through  the  marble 
or  the  canvas,  and  others  still  through  nature,  which 
is  God's  Art — His  great  orchestral  multitudinous 
unity  of  voices  which  speak,  to  ears  attuned  to  listen, 
things  which  they  alone  can  hear.  And  within  the 
region  of  each  special  art  there  are  adaptations. 
The  drum  and  bugle  may  give  out  the  wild  and  stir- 
ring summons  to  the  battle.  The  stately  organ  and 
subtle  violin  or  harp  must  lend  their  voices  for  the 
richer  and  more  pathetic  stories  which  the  soul  can 
hear.  There  is  that  which  you  must  carve  in  ivory 
and  that  which  you  must  hew  in  granite.  Wax  can- 
not bring  the  revelation  which  can  shine  forth  from 
marble.  The  true  artist  is  he  in  whom  the  feeling 
of  the  fitness  of  message  and  medium  for  one  an- 
other is  perfect.  For  the  message  is  dumb  without 
its  true  medium  of  expression,  and  the  medium 
without  its  worthy  message  is  insignificant  and  weak. 
Therein — in  those  two  truths — lies  the  secret  of  the 
failure  of  all  that  tries  to  be  art  and  is  not,  the  secret 
of  the  success  of  all  that  is  finally  and  truly  art. 

We  can  well  see  where  such  a  principle  will  make 
its  highest  exhibition.  The  highest  and  finest  ele- 
ment in  the  world's  life  is  human  nature.  There- 
fore it  will  be  through  the  medium  of  human  natures 
that  the  loftiest  and  completest  revelations  will  be 
given.  That  which  could  not  be  spoken  in  words, 
nor  breathed  through  music,  nor  intimated  in  the 
subtle  harmonies  of  nature,  nor  painted  on  canvas, 
nor  cast  in  bronze,  will  be  told,  where  only  it  can  be 


LIVING  EPISTLES  117 

told,  in  man.  A  human  life  will  be  God's  voice  to 
utter  His  divinest  truth.  This  is  what  made  the 
Incarnation.  "God,  who,  at  sundry  times  and  in 
divers  manners,  spake  in  time  past  unto  the  fathers 
by  the  prophets,  hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto 
us  by  His  Son"  :  so  speaks  the  opening  verse  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  The  highest  humanity 
must  bring  the  highest  message  of  Divinity. 

When  people  talk,  as  they  sometimes  do,  about 
not  needing  Christ,  about  the  gospel  of  nature  being 
enough  for  them,  about  the  woods  and  the  ocean 
and  the  stars  bringing  them  all  the  truth  their  souls 
require, — here  is  their  fallacy.  The  tidings  which 
the  stars  and  trees  bring  are  good  and  inspiring. 
They  soothe  us  in  our  tumult;  sometimes,  though 
not  so  often,  they  inspire  us  in  our  sluggishness ;  but, 
because  of  the  essential  limitations  of  their  own  na- 
ture, there  are  truths  they  cannot  tell,  there  are  in- 
spirations which  they  cannot  bring.  Let  me  sit  in 
the  coolness  of  the  woods  and  listen  to  all  that  the 
winds  can  say ;  and  when  they  have  said  everything 
that  they  can,  they  leave  the  centre  of  my  soul 
a-hungered.  Then  there  must  come  some  finer 
medium,  able  to  transmit  a  finer  music.  Come, 
then,  O  Christ !  with  Thy  humanity,  able  to  tell  of 
my  dignity,  my  sin,  my  hope,  my  sonship;  able  to 
say  to  me  as  Thou  hast  said  to  such  multitudes  of 
Thy  Father's  children  :  "He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father."  Here  is  the  perpetual  necessity 
of  Jesus  Christ,  whom  no  nature-gospel  can  super- 
sede or  make  unnecessary. 

The  Incarnation,  then,  is  the  supreme  assertion 


ii8  LIVING  EPISTLES 

that  only  through  the  highest  medium,  which  is  hu 
manity,  can  the  highest  messages  be  given  to  man- 
kind. The  same  assertion  is  always  being  made  in 
smaller  ways.  One  of  the  most  subtle  of  communi- 
cations which  ever  demands  to  be  made,  is  the  es- 
sential nature  of  a  period  or  of  an  institution.  What 
was  the  spirit  of  the  fifteenth  century?  What  was 
the  intrinsic  quality  of  its  life?  How  shall  I  know? 
I  read  its  books,  and  my  mind  gets  some  sort  of 
hard,  cold  picture.  I  gather  up  its  events,  and  some 
sort  of  lifeless  map  unfolds  before  me.  I  watch  its 
art,  I  listen  to  its  music,  I  see  its  implements  of  liv- 
ing, and  I  catch  something  of  the  movement  and 
aroma  of  its  life.  But  if,  out  of  its  millions  of  graves, 
some  one  characteristic  man  should  shake  off  the 
dust  of  death  and  come  among  us,  all  vital  with  the 
vitality  of  four  hundred  years  ago,  should  we  not 
have  something  which  no  page  of  Dante,  no  canvas 
of  Raphael,  no  marble  of  Michael  Angelo  could  tell? 
All  the  lost  standards  of  life — the  prejudices,  the 
hopes,  the  fears,  the  sense  of  honor  and  disgrace, 
the  aspirations,  the  fallacies,  the  good  and  bad,  the 
virtues  and  the  sins  of  the  dead  past — would  live  in 
him.  Through  him  the  heart  of  the  departed  cen- 
tury would  speak  yet  to  all  the  ages  till  the  end  of 
time — if  he  could  live  so  long. 

Perhaps  that  makes  the  argument  too  grand  and 
distant.  Think  how  to-day,  and  in  the  commonest 
life,  messages  are  flying  back  and  forth  from  life  to 
life,  keeping  the  whole  of  the  world  of  men  tremu- 
lous and  quivering  with  endless  communication. 
How  did  you  know  what  courage  was?     Who  told 


LIVING  EPISTLES  119 

you  what  it  was  to  value  truth,  and  how  did  the 
message  come  from  him  to  you?  Where  did  the 
sunrise  get  its  freshness  and  the  sunset  its  glory? 
Ask  yourself,  and  you  will  see  that  it  is  through  hu- 
manity ;  through  what  men  have  made  of  them  and 
they  have  made  of  men ;  through  the  utterances  by 
which  humanity  has  given  an  expression  of  them 
that  even  the  most  external  facts  of  the  material 
world  may  be  said  to  have  attained  their  truest 
manifestation  and  to  have  gained  by  them  their 
deepest  influence.  And  all  which  comes  from  behind 
nature,  all  which  comes  from  God — as  everything 
does  finally — must  come  through  man  if  it  would 
come  at  its  best.  For  then  it  comes  through  like  to 
like.  No  foreign  element  intrudes  or  intervenes.  It 
is  like  welding  gold  to  gold  with  gold,  when  God 
sends  messages  to  man  through  man.  For  God  and 
man  belong  together,  and  all  else  in  the  wide  world 
is  foreign  to  the  unity  they  make. 

And  now,  are  we  not  ready  to  come  to  St.  Paul's 
idea  about  his  Corinthians?  The  principle,  which  I 
have  taken  so  long  to  define  and  illustrate,  never 
found  a  more  perfect  illustration  than  in  him  and 
them.  "Ye  are  my  Epistle,"  he  declares.  He  had 
something  to  give  the  people  of  Corinth — what  was 
it?  His  Christ, — the  power  of  the  living  and  dying 
and  eternal  life  of  his  divine  Master.  He  wanted  to 
give  that  to  Corinth— how  should  he  do  it?  Should 
he  write  it  in  a  book  and  send  it  there?  I  can  im- 
agine him  writing  and  writing,  and  then,  just  about 
to  send  it,  stopping  and  reading  what  he  had  written 
and  saying  to  himself,  "No!     It  is  not  there.     I 


I20  LIVING  EPISTLES 

have  not  put  it,  I  cannot  put  it,  in  the  page.  It  is 
too  fine.  It  is  too  subtle.  It  is  too  divine."  He 
realizes  that  he  might  go  or  send  a  man  to  write  on 
every  wall  in  Corinth  in  golden  letters,  "The  Cross 
is  powerful";  yet  he  has  not  written  the  Power  of 
the  Cross.     That  is  unwritable  in  letters. 

What  then?  He  takes  a  Corinthian,  a  true  man 
of  Corinth ;  he  unwraps  all  the  unreality  in  which  he 
is  enveloped  and  gets  at  his  heart ;  he  takes  off  cir- 
cumstance after  circumstance  till  he  comes  to  the 
real  man ;  and  then  he  writes  the  tidings  which  he 
has  to  tell  on  that.  Right  on  that  living,  quivering 
humanity,  right  on  that  human  heart  all  tremulous 
and  sensitive  with  hopes  and  fears,  he  writes  the 
story  of  the  Cross.  Into  its  horror  and  its  exulta- 
tion he  inscribes  the  fearful  glory  of  that  tragedy 
which  saved  the  world.  And,  when  he  has  made  it 
part  of  the  man's  very  life,  so  that,  living  at  his 
heart,  it  shines  in  his  eyes  and  trembles  in  his  voice 
and  throbs  out  of  him  in  every  movement  that  he 
makes; — then  Paul  says  to  him,  "Now  go!  You 
are  my  epistle." 

And  the  man  goes,  with  the  writing  of  Paul  throb- 
bing, burning  in  him.  He  travels  eagerly  with  his 
burning  heart  until  he  comes  to  the  great  city.  He 
goes  up  and  down  in  Corinth.  He  turns  from  the 
great  streets  into  the  little  alleys.  He  stops  at  the 
doors  of  houses.  He  sits  down  in  people's  rooms. 
He  does  the  business  of  a  Corinth  man.  And  every- 
where, with  every  movement,  there  beats  out  from 
him  this  with  which  his  heart  is  full  and  fiery — the 
Power  of  the  Cross.     He  may  say  almost  nothing; 


LIVING  EPISTLES  121 

but  you  cannot  look  at  him  without  seeing  in  him 
the  struggle  to  subdue  himself  and  sacrifice  himself 
for  his  brethren,  for  the  love  of  Christ,  the  Crucified. 
Now,  is  not  the  work  done,  or  at  least  begun? 
What  the  page  or  the  painted  wall  could  not  tell, 
what  no  voice  or  trumpet  could  have  uttered,  be- 
hold !  here  it  is  written  into  a  man  so  that  other 
men,  seeing  it,  must  understand.  "You  are  my 
epistle,  known  and  read  of  all  men!  " 

As  such  a  picture  grows  clear  before  us,  does  it 
not  impress  us  with  the  lofty  privilege  of  the  man 
to  whom  it  was  thus  given  not  merely  to  carry  but 
to  be  the  Letter  of  the  great  Apostle?  He  was  not 
simply  to  find  his  way  to  some  official  of  the  little 
church  at  Corinth,  and  deliver  his  missive  and  then 
go  his  way.  He  was  the  missive.  Every  deed  he 
did  was  a  new  letter  on  the  page.  It  was  not  some- 
thing which  men  could  rob  him  of,  or  that  he  could 
lose.  He  could  lose  it  only  when  he  lost  himself. 
He  could  cease  to  be  an  epistle  of  St.  Paul  only 
when  that  heart  on  which,  into  which  the  truth  of 
Paul  was  written,  ceased  to  beat.  And  just  then, 
even  when  it  ceased  to  beat,  it  might  with  its  last 
quiver  utter  its  message  more  powerfully  than  ever, 
even  under  the  torturing  knife.  As  the  English 
Queen  bade  her  people  know  that  when  they  opened 
her  heart  they  would  find  there  her  lost  fortress,  so 
might  St.  Paul's  "epistle"  bid  his  tormentors  un- 
derstand that  he  would  never  be  such  an  utterance 
of  the  truth  as  just  when  they  were  killing  him  for 
the  truth's  sake. 

O  my  dear  friends,  have  you  any  conception  of  a 


122  LIVING  EPISTLES 

life  like  that?  Is  there  any  great  Gospel  of  which 
you  are  an  epistle?  If  men  cut  deep  into  your 
heart,  would  any  truth  burst  out  from  it  like  a  foun- 
tain? If  not,  you  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  live. 
If  not,  there  is  something  preposterous  in  your  go- 
ing about  lamenting  the  monotony  and  uninterest- 
ingness  of  life.  What  do  you  know  of  life?  Life 
does  not  begin  with  a  man  till  he  is  filled  with  the 
truth  which  it  is  the  necessity  and  joy  of  his  exis- 
tence to  utter  on  every  side.  It  is  life  indeed  when 
that  has  come.  Then,  what  you  are  proclaims  the 
truth  which  you  believe.  Men  catch  the  voice — the 
loud  voice  of  your  silent  being — as  you  go  along 
the  street.  Yours  is  the  glorious  privilege  to  make 
the  truth  seem  more  true,  to  make  the  lie  seem 
more  false,  by  the  way  you  live.  That  is  to  be  an 
epistle  of  God  I 

Again :  the  essential  character  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  is  involved,  I  think,  in  these  words  of  St. 
Paul  and  the  truth  which  they  express.  The  Chris- 
tian faith  is  evidently  something  which  must  find  its 
expression  and  utterance  in  men.  It  is  a  power 
whose  manifestation  must  be  in  personal  life.  It  is 
not  something  you  can  write  out  fully  in  a  book.  It 
is  something  which  must  be  lived  out  in  a  life.  Its 
Bible  is,  what?  Not  a  system  of  doctrines,  not  a 
system  of  laws,  but  a  clear  glass  through  which  is  seen 
a  Person.  You  must  judge  whether  you  have  really 
appropriated  the  Religion  of  Christ  and  the  Religion 
of  the  Bible  by  this  test.  What  is  it  that  you  think 
of  when  you  think  of  spreading  your  faith?  Is  it 
the  promulgation  of  ideas,  such  as  may  be  written 


LIVING  EPISTLES  123 

on  paper  and  proved  by  argument?  or  is  it  the 
awakening  of  new  spiritual  life  by  the  touch  of  the 
power  which  has  entered  into  and  become  your  self? 
The  first  is  the  notion  of  carrying  an  epistle.  The 
second  is  the  notion  of  being  an  epistle.  The  first 
has  but  reached  the  form  of  our  divine  faith;  the 
second  is  dealing  with  its  soul.  Every  word  of 
Christ  breathes  with  the  spirit  of  the  second. 

Again :  here  is  the  real  truth  about  the  Christian 
Church.  We  are  told  that  the  Church  came  before 
the  Bible.  Of  course  it  did.  Not  merely  it  came, 
but  it  must  have  come,  before  the  Bible.  It  was 
not  merely  an  historical  event ;  it  was  a  philosophi- 
cal necessity.  It  must  be  so  in  every  soul.  We 
must  remember  what  the  Church  really  is:  a  group 
and  a  succession  of  living  souls.  Through  them 
first  the  new  religion  must  have  gone  abroad.  You 
cannot  picture  Christ  sitting  down  and  sending 
abroad  tracts  which  with  cold  written  words  should 
make  the  world  discern  in  Him  its  Master.  Rather 
we  see  how  He  must  stand,  as  He  does  stand,  there 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  just  ready  Himself  to  re- 
ascend  into  the  heavens,  and  fling  out  of  His  lifted 
hand  live  lives  of  living  men  into  the  air  like  birds, 
which  flying  east  and  west  and  north  and  south 
should  carry  Him  abroad  throughout  the  ages  and 
the  world.  "You  are  my  epistles,"  we  can  hear 
Him  say.  The  Church  was  then  and  there  im- 
mediately. It  was  there  in  that  group  of  believers, 
eager  to  spread  abroad  the  power  of  their  faith. 
The  Bible  only  came  by  and  by,  as  an  attempt  to 
perpetuate  the  personal  testimony  of  those  believers 


124  LIVING  EPISTLES 

when  they  should  be  no  more  on  earth,  and  to  ex- 
tend it  into  regions  where  their  feet  and  faces  could 
not  go.  Still  and  forever  the  Church  is  the  great 
Christian  power,  and  the  epistles  of  the  Lord  are 
human  hearts. 

I  do  not  plead  that  you  should  always  be  looking 
outward  and  thinking  what  is  to  be  the  effect  of 
your  life  on  other  lives.  The  greatest  power  often 
comes  by  forgetting  power,  and  doing  the  present 
task,  and  being  the  present  character;  often  by  the 
immediate  sacrifice  of  power  which  other  men  are 
seeking.  But  the  two  do  not  really  come  into  con- 
flict with  each  other.  To  be  our  best  for  the  great 
general  good, — that  is  the  union  of  the  two ;  that  is 
the  true  solution  of  their  seeming  discord. 

All  this  seems  to  me  to  be  necessarily  involved 
in  the  metaphor  to  which  our  study  of  this  morn- 
ing has  been  given.  St.  Paul's  epistles — the  living 
men  whom  he  filled  with  his  truth — must  have  had 
two  consciousnesses :  one  of  his  finger  writing  upon 
them,  the  other  of  the  great  world  for  which  the 
message  was  written,  to  which  it  must  be  carried. 
The  graving  finger  and  the  waiting  world  together 
enriched  and  solemnized  their  life.  They  were  not 
two  influences,  but  one. 

We  are  all  Christ's  epistles,  and  we  also  must  have 
two  consciousnesses.  Now,  it  is  He,  our  Master, 
writing  upon  us ;  in  at  the  very  depth  of  our  hearts 
we  feel  His  graving  finger.  He  presses  His  standards 
and  His  love  into  the  very  substance  of  our  souls. 
He  writes  Himself  on  us.  And  then,  when  we  are 
all  possessed  with  the  great  richness  of  this  experi- 


LIVING  EPISTLES  125 

ence,  then,  hark !  a  voice  is  in  our  ears.  The  world 
is  calling  to  us:  "O  Soul,  O  Christian,  that  is  not 
for  you  alone.  It  is  for  us  as  well.  Come,  O  epistle 
of  the  Lord,  and  tell  us  what  He  has  told  you !  " 

There  is  no  conflict,  no  struggle.  We  are  what 
God  has  made  us  for  the  world  of  God.  The  hearts 
on  which  He  has  written  His  truth  and  love  are  too 
sacred  for  their  own  sole  possession.  Let  who  will 
come  and  read  them.  O  brethren,  may  God  make 
us  such  that  it  may  be  nothing  but  good  for  men  to 
read  us,  what  we  are,  down  to  the  very  depths ! 


VIII. 

INDIVIDUAL    AND    COLLECTIVE 
HUMANITY. 

"  Jesus  then  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  saw  a  great  company." — John 
vi.  5. 

The  sight  of  a  crowd  of  human  beings  always  is 
impressive.  The  crowd  may  be  of  any  sort  and 
gathered  on  any  occasion.  It  may  be  a  great,  rapt 
multitude  listening  together  to  exalted  and  exalting 
music.  It  may  be  a  mob,  wild  and  tumultuous  with 
passion.  It  may  be  an  army  marching  like  one  great, 
marvellous  machine,  to  meet  the  enemy.  It  may  be 
the  chance  gathering  of  passengers  whom  some  ac- 
cidental obstruction  has  stopped  upon  the  street. 
Whatever  be  its  cause,  it  is  a  crowd ;  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  any  truly  human  soul  that  stands  and 
watches  it.  It  is  not  simply  for  the  special  thoughts 
which  it  suggests.  It  is  not  Xerxes  weeping  at  the 
sight  of  the  army  of  which  in  a  few  years  no  man 
will  be  left  alive.  It  is  not  so  definite  as  that.  It 
is  the  general  sense  of  human  life,  the  very  essence 
of  this  mysterious  and  mighty  thing,  apart  from 
particular  conditions,  apart  from  curious  specula- 
tions upon  it.  It  is  the  fact  of  life  laid  on  the  heart 
of  the  living  man  that  makes  the  interest  of  a  great 

126 


HUMANITY  127 

crowd.  A  sensitive  child  will  feel  it.  It  is  in  some 
sense  the  personal  impression  broadened  and  deep- 
ened and  richened ;  but  there  is  also  something  in  it 
which  no  contact  with  the  individual  produces, —  a 
pure  impression  of  humanity,  as  if  you  were  able  to 
extricate  from  all  its  entanglements  the  one  essen- 
tial, universal  quality  which  makes  a  man  a  man ; 
and,  making  it  concrete  and  visible,  yet  preserving 
all  the  broadness  of  abstraction,  to  hold  it  before 
your  eyes  and  let  it  impress  itself  upon  your  heart. 
This  is  the  general  impressiveness  of  a  crowd. 
But,  no  doubt,  the  impression  cannot  be  uniform. 
It  must  vary  with  the  character  of  the  observer,  of 
the  human  being  upon  whom  the  impression  falls. 
In  the  words  of  my  text,  Christ  is  the  Observer.  He 
has  crossed  the  sea  of  Tiberias  with  His  disciples. 
He  is  sitting  on  a  hillside  of  the  Eastern  country. 
He  has  been  pondering,  and  perhaps  praying.  By 
and  by  He  lifts  up  His  eyes  and  sees  a  great  com- 
pany. The  multitude  whom  He  left  beyond  the 
lake  has  followed  Him  across,  and  He  is  face  to  face 
with  them  again.  He  cannot  escape  from  men. 
Then  He  accepts  them  into  His  life  and  deals  with 
them.  And  we  can  feel,  I  think,  that  as  they  im- 
press themselves  on  Him  we  are  getting,  as  it  were, 
the  largest  and  truest  impression  which  humanity 
has  ever  made  on  man.  That  which  I  tried  to  say 
just  now  of  the  essential  life  making  itself  known, 
must  have  been  more  real  with  Jesus  Christ  than 
with  any  other  watcher  of  his  fellow-men  that  ever 
lived;  for  here  was  Man  in  His  completeness  re- 
ceiving men  in  their  completeness.     More  and  more 


128  HUMANITY 

we  come  to  see  that  this  was  what  the  Incarnation 
meant.  It  was  the  Son  of  man,  in  whom  the  whole 
of  all  the  life  of  man  was  gathered  up,  who  sat  and 
watched  the  multitude  and  first  realized  Himself  in 
them,  and  then  knew  them  in  Himself  as  they  had 
never  been  known  before. 

Let  us  think  for  a  while  about  Christ  looking  upon 
a  crowd  of  men.  And  first,  let  us  try  to  see  the 
picture  which  is  in  the  words  with  which  the  scene 
is  introduced  to  us.  It  is  an  old  Bible  phrase,  one 
that  recurs  very  often  in  the  Bible  story,  in  which 
the  Saviour  is  described  as  "lifting  up  his  eyes"  to 
see  the  people.  The  picture  is  of  a  man  sitting  with 
his  eyes  bent  down.  He  is  in  thought  and  contem- 
plation. He  is  seeing  with  the  inward  sight.  He 
is  seeing  the  invisible.  He  is  looking  at  truth.  He 
is  questioning  Himself.  So  sitting,  Jesus  is  the  type 
of  all  introspection  and  meditation  and  study,  of  all 
that  occupation  of  mankind  which  is  turned  away 
from  active  human  life  and  is  dwelling  on  the  unseen 
things.  We  recognize  at  once  the  quiet,  absorbed 
Figure  on  the  hillside. 

Do  we  not  also  recognize  at  once  the  quick  re- 
sponse with  which,  in  answer  to  the  bustling  feet  of 
the  approaching  crowd,  Christ  turns  and  looks  up, 
and  listens  and  is  ready  for  them,  and  gives  Himself 
in  answer  to  their  claim.  He  is  theirs.  No  self- 
indulgence,  even  in  the  deepest  thought  or  highest 
vision,  even  in  prayer  to  His  Father,  must  make 
Him  deaf  or  blind  to  human  life  appealing  to  Him  and 
requiring  His  help.     Therefore  He  lifts  up  His  eyes. 

Could  the  conditions  and  obligations  of  our  human 


HUMANITY  129 

life  be  more  vividly  set  forth  than  here?  There  is 
no  study  or  dream,  no  meditation  or  prayer,  which 
must  not  hold  itself  subject  to  the  demand  of  men. 
It  is  not  simply  that  the  dream  or  study  is  less  im- 
portant, and  must  sacrifice  itself  when  the  human 
need  requires ;  it  is  more  than  that.  It  is  that  the 
study  and  the  dream  need  for  their  rectification 
and  fulfilment  this  readiness  to  report  themselves  to 
man  and  his  nature.  They  must  justify  and  know 
themselves  before  the  face  of  human  life  looking  to 
them  out  of  its  anxieties  and  hopes. 

The  illustrations  of  this  are  everywhere.  Philoso- 
phers study  and  ponder  to  adjust  their  system  of 
the  universe  to  man.  They  cannot,  they  must  not, 
be  satisfied  with  their  systems  till  they  have  lifted 
up  their  eyes  and  seen  the  "great  company."  Will 
their  philosophy  watch  the  world  and  explain  it? 
they  ask  themselves.  Can  they  tell  man  what  his 
life  is,  and  how  to  live  it?  The  abstract  student  of 
political  science  must  sooner  or  later  see  before  him 
men  waiting  to  be  governed.  The  military  theorists 
must  tell  how  this  especial  battle  is  to  be  fought  and 
won.  The  medical  inquirer  must  know  that  there 
is  sickness  crying  out  to  be  cured.  The  theologians 
must  be  aware  of  eager  souls  appealing  to  them  with 
the  pathetic  question,  "What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved?"  The  safety  of  man,  the  rescue  of  the 
thinker  from  the  perils  of  his  thought,  the  assurance 
that  the  farthest  and  deepest  shall  always  be  at  the 
service  of  the  immediate  and  pressing,  lies  in  this 
readiness  of  all  true  men  to  lift  up  their  eyes  and 
see  the  "great  company." 


I30  HUMANITY 

There  are  students  and  dreamers  and  theorists 
enough  who  are  not  ready.  Sometimes  their  ab- 
sorption and  irresponsiveness  makes  other  men 
rudely  and  crudely  denounce  all  meditation  and 
speculation,  and  say  that  the  far-off  heavens  shine 
only  for  their  own  luxury,  and  have  no  light  to  give 
to  the  darkened  earth.  But  such  vexation  is  slight 
and  temporary.  The  crowd  looks  to  the  scholar  and 
the  dreamer  and  the  saint,  and  does  not  look  in  vain. 
It  is  a  history  full  of  instruction  and  encouragement 
that  He  who  saw  the  deepest  vision  and  prayed  the 
holiest  prayer  was  the  very  first  to  turn  away  from 
both,  to  lift  up  His  eyes  and  see  the  multitude,  and 
love  them,  and  come  down  to  break  for  them  the 
bread  of  life. 

But  let  us,  before  we  come  directly  to  the  thought 
of  how  Christ  looked  upon  the  crowd,  consider  some- 
what more  fully  what  the  sight  of  a  host  of  his  fellow- 
beings  may  be  to  any  man  who  looks  them  in  the 
face.  May  it  not  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  a 
crowd  may  be  to  any  man  a  mirror  into  which  he 
looks  and  sees  what  he  is,  and  what  he  ought  to  be. 

There  is,  first,  the  revelation  of  what  a  man  is 
which  comes  to  him  in  the  presence  of  a  crowd.  I 
mean  of  what  he  is  essentially,  intrinsically,  behind 
and  separate  from  the  countless  accidents  of  his 
existence  and  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  his  lot. 
This  belongs  with  what  we  saw  of  the  power  which 
a  great  crowd  has  to  present  essential  and  absolute 
humanity  to  our  minds.  Facing  that  great  presen- 
tation, many  things  which  are  not  essential  drop  off 
and  fall  away.     You  go  out  from  your  individual 


HUMANITY  131 

life,  from  your  self-absorbed  existence,  and  stand 
face  to  face  with  a  great  host  of  your  fellow-men, 
and  as  you  stand  there  (have  you  not  felt  it?)  all  that 
is  really  human  in  you  throbs  with  vitality.  It  is 
alive  with  sympathy,  while  that  which  is  not  human 
manifests  its  weak  vitality  and  begins  to  die.  Your 
artificialnesses  are  exposed.  You  feel  what  shams 
your  shams  are,  how  selfish  are  j^our  selfishnesses. 
Thus  you  see  yourself  in  the  mirror. 

In  the  same  mirror,  in  the  face  of  the  same  crowd, 
you  see  also  what  you  ought  to  be.  For,  along  with 
the  sense  of  how  thoroughly  your  humanity  is  one 
with  that  of  the  crowd  on  which  you  look — not  in- 
terfering with  it>  but  increased  and  deepened  by  it, 
— there  is  the  other  sense  of  how  distinct  your  life  is 
from  the  lives  of  all  these  men.  You  are  a  separate 
being.  There  are  some  things  which  specialize  in 
you  the  universal  human  life.  The  gifts  and  endow- 
ments which  you  possess  become  real  to  you  ;  all  the 
privileges  of  your  life  grow  clear.  You  are  entirely 
unable  to  be  proud  of  them.  They  are  yours  for 
the  sake  of  this  multitude.  They  become  the 
personal  expression  of  the  universal  life,  bound  to 
restore  themselves  in  service  to  those  human  neces- 
sities which  look  into  your  face  with  their  appeal 
out  of  this  one  great  face  of  the  crowd. 

I  think  that  no  man  of  true  sensitiveness  has  come 
forth  from  his  studies  and  contemplations  into  the 
storm  and  host  of  human  living,  without  this  becom- 
ing his  revelation.  He  was  himself  for  all  of  these. 
They  claimed  all  that  he  was  and  had.  If  he  was 
rich  when  they  were  poor,  it  was  their  riches  that  he 


132  HUMANITY 

held.  If  he  was  wise  when  they  were  ignorant,  it 
was  their  wisdom.  Who  was  it  that  had  made  him 
to  differ?  Even  the  Father  who  had  first  made  him 
one  with  them.  And  so  humility  and  responsibility, 
which  are  so  often  in  contention  and  stand  apart 
from  one  another,  meet  in  the  heart  of  the  true  man 
who  stands  face  to  face  with  the  crowd  of  his  fellow- 
men. 

It  is  these  things,  then,  which  all  true  men  find, 
and  which  Jesus  Christ,  we  cannot  doubt,  found  in 
the  presence  of  a  multitude, —  self-revelation  and 
noble  impulse — these  two  together.  When  He  saw 
the  gathering  in  the  Temple  at  the  time  of  the 
journey  which  He  made  there  in  His  boyhood,  when 
He  looked  upon  the  host  who  were  waiting  for  their 
baptism  at  Jordan,  when  He  came  down  from  the 
mountain  and  found  the  crowd  waiting  in  the  plain, 
when  He  preached  in  the  thronged  synagogue  at 
Capernaum,  when  He  walked  the  streets  of  Jerusa- 
lem or  stood  in  the  courts  of  the  great  Temple, — 
everywhere  these  two  things  were  taking  place :  He 
was  knowing  how  truly  He  was  one  with  man,  and 
He  was  feeling  that  that  in  Him  which  was  more 
than  man  was  being  claimed  by  the  human  need. 
The  woods  and  mountains  could  not  do  these  things 
for  Him;  therefore  He  turned  from  mountains  and 
woods  to  the  places  where  men  were. 

We  cannot  picture  Christ  to  ourselves  as  a  mere 
dreamer.  The  Oriental  standard  of  the  holy  man — 
the  mystic  sitting  in  rapt,  useless  meditation  year 
after  year — wholly  fails  in  Him.  The  nature-wor- 
shipper, listening  to  what  the  trees  and  streamlets 


HUMANITY  133 

have  to  say,  drinking  in,  after  our  modern  notion  of 
him,  the  unarticulated  wisdom  of  the  clouds  and  the 
flowers, — that  is  not  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels,  the 
Jesus  of  the  Christian  faith.  He  is  a  man  of  men. 
Any  day  the  murmur  of  a  crowd  will  draw  Him  from 
the  silence  of  the  hillside.  For  the  deep  know- 
ledge of  Himself  and  the  impulse  of  service  pour 
into  Him  out  of  the  eager  faces  and  the  pictures 
of  suffering  and  joy  which  throng  upon  Him. 

These  are  the  elements  out  of  which  character  is 
made.  And  so  it  is  in  presence  of  the  world,  in 
contact  with  the  world,  that  character  has  birth. 
This  was  the  truth  which  Goethe  taught,  the  truth 
of  a  talent  shaping  itself  in  stillness,  but  a  character 
in  the  activity  of  life.  It  is  character,  not  talent, 
for  the  lack  of  which  the  world  suffers.  It  is  be- 
cause of  too  little  character,  not  because  of  too  little 
talent,  that  the  careers  of  human  beings  come  to 
wreck.  Therefore  that  which  makes  character  must 
always  be  the  true  salvation  of  mankind.  Therefore 
man,  and  not  nature,  is  the  true  school  of  Human 
Life. 

With  this  general  truth  concerning  Christ's  rela- 
tion to  the  multitude  of  men  clear  in  our  mind,  we 
are  prepared  to  go  on  and  speak  of  two  or  three  of 
the  special  effects  which  it  produced  in  Him.  And 
the  first  which  I  ask  you  to  observe  is  this :  the  per- 
fect mingling  of  respect  and  pity  in  the  way  in  which 
He  felt  about  mankind.  It  would  be  useless  to 
deny  that  pity,  as  we  ordinarily  know  it,  has  in  it 
almost  always  a  mixture  of  contempt.  It  is  not  re- 
spectful to  the  nature  of  the  man  whom  it  pities. 


134  HUMANITY 

That  is  the  reason  why  it  is  resented  almost  as  if  it 
were  insulting.  "Do  not  pity  me,"  the  proud  man 
cries.  "Neglect  me  if  you  will;  abuse  me,  but  do 
not  pity  me."  It  is  not  simply  that  pity  declares  of 
necessity  the  misfortune  of  him  on  whom  the  pity  is 
bestowed.  That  is  inevitable.  It  is  that  pity,  as 
we  give  it,  seems  to  interpret  and  comment  on  mis- 
fortune. It  seems  to  say  that  the  man  must  be  not 
worth  much  who  could  come  to  this.  It  seems  to 
set  the  pitier  over  against  the  pitied  in  an  assertion 
of  superior  desert. 

Your  friend  has  passed  into  some  one  of  the  great 
clouds  of  sorrow  which  darken  the  houses  and  the 
hearts  of  men.  You,  from  outside  the  cloud,  radi- 
ant with  the  sunshine  of  prosperity,  speak  in  to  him 
and  tell  him  how  you  pity  him.  Do  you  not  know 
the  feeling  of  suspense  with  which  you  listen  to  hear 
how  he  will  receive  your  words?  Do  you  not  know 
how  hard  it  is,  first  to  keep,  and  then  to  make  him 
know  that  you  keep,  a  true  respect  for  him  through 
all  his  suffering;  and  that  there  is  no  slightest  latent 
spark  of  the  consciousness  of  superiority  in  the 
commiseration  which  you  offer  him?  The  Book  of 
Job,  with  the  supercilious  comfort  of  the  prosperous 
friends,  repeats  itself  in  countless  homes  of  sorrow. 

It  is  the  absolute  absence  of  all  this  in  Jesus  Christ 
which  makes  the  wonder  of  His  life.  There  is  never 
a  touch  of  contempt  in  His  dealing  with  distress. 
When  He  touches  the  blind  man's  eyes  and  gives 
him  sight ;  when  He  steps  across  the  threshold  of 
the  dead  girl's  chamber;  when,  by  the  Pool  of 
Bethesda,  He  probes  the  intention  and  desire  of  the 


HUMANITY  135 

sick  man's  soul;  when  He  calls  to  the  buried  Laza- 
rus at  Bethany ; — everywhere,  do  you  not  feel  the 
infinite  and  exquisite  reverence  which  is  in  His 
touch  and  His  voice  for  the  human  nature  to  which 
His  word  is  spoken,  or  on  which  His  hand  is 
laid? 

It  is  not  merely  that  Christ  is  a  sufferer  Himself. 
It  is  not  merely  that  He  is  poor,  and  so  is  in  special 
sympathy  with  poverty  and  distress.  That  would 
make  Him  the  friend  of  a  class,  almost  the  partisan 
of  a  party  among  men — the  party  of  the  wretched 
and  distressed.  It  is  something  larger  and  deeper 
than  that.  It  is  the  reverence  of  the  Lord  of  human 
nature  for  the  human  nature  which  He  rules, — nay, 
of  the  Creator  of  man  for  the  man  whom  He  created. 
Who  knows  the  wonder  and  mystery  of  the  organ 
like  the  man  who  built  it,  who  piled  pipe  on  pipe, 
each  with  its  capacity  of  various  sound?  And  so, 
who  is  it  that  shall  touch  the  jarred  and  untuned 
organ,  and  call  it  back  to  harmony,  like  him  in 
whose  soul  the  organ's  primitive  and  ideal  harmony 
forever  dwells,  and  to  whom  all  its  discord  and  dis- 
order is  a  sadness  and  a  shame? 

Therefore  it  is  that  Jesus  Christ  pities  not  merely 
the  sorrow  and  the  poverty  which  He  knows  by 
fellow-feeling,  by  being  sorrowful  and  poor  himself. 
He  pities  far  more  the  sin  and  meanness  and  moral 
misery  which  He  knows  by  its  contrast  with  His  own 
soul,  and  its  departure  from  that  purpose  of  human 
nature  which  lies  always  in  the  depths  of  His  divine 
and  human  soul.  He  pities  sorrow,  but  He  pities 
sin  far  more.      Pilate  and  Herod  and  Judas  and  the 


136  HUMANITY 

Pharisees, — these  are  the  truly  pitiable  creatures  of 
the  earth  for  Him.  And  yet,  even  for  them  the 
reverence  is  not  lost  in  the  pitifulness.  The  mys- 
tery and  richness  of  their  human  nature  still  abides 
behind  their  cowardice  and  selfishness.  Can  you 
not  feel  it  in  the  marvellous  loftiness  and  courtesy 
of  that  conversation  at  the  judgment  seat?  Does  it 
not  tremble  even  in  the  simple  words  with  which,  at 
the  Last  Supper,  the  Lord  dismisses  the  traitor  to 
his  dreadful  work? 

The  work  of  the  Gospel  on  the  soul  which  it 
saves,  bears  the  conclusive  witness  of  the  respect 
which  mingles  with  the  pity  which  is  the  power  of 
salvation.  Where  is  the  soul,  rejoicing  in  the  work 
which  Christ  has  done  for  it,  that  has  not  wondered 
when  it  saw  how  the  very  visitation  of  Divinity 
which  made  its  sin  manifest,  and  bowed  it  down  with 
penitence,  also  made  manifest  its  preciousness,  and 
opened  visions  of  its  possible  attainment !  You 
knew  how  you  needed  salvation  when  you  met 
Christ.  You  knew  how  worth  saving  you  were  when 
you  met  Christ.  The  awe  which  a  soul  feels  be- 
fore itself  as  its  spiritual  capacity  is  being  revealed 
in  its  conversion, — what  is  it  but  the  reflection  and 
echo  of  the  reverence  which  is  in  the  heart  of  Christ 
for  the  soul  which  He  is  saving  by  His  grace? 

What  the  soul  feels  the  world  feels.  There  is  a 
certain  insolence  in  most  reformers.  It  hinders  the 
triumphs  of  reform.  It  sullies  the  splendor  of  much 
of  the  noblest  progress  which  the  world  has  made. 
The  leader  stands  before  the  host,  and  bids  them  to 
the  battle  almost  with  a  taunt  and  a  jeer.     There  is 


HUMANITY  137 

nothing  of  that  in  Christ.  There  is  a  profound  rev- 
erence for  the  army  which  He  leads.  Therefore  the 
army  has  followed  Him  as  it  has  followed  no  other 
captain.  And  when  He  leads  it  into  its  final  victory, 
the  victory  will  be  sure. 

Let  me  pass  on  to  another  impressive  point  in  the 
way  in  which  Christ  looks  at  the  crowd  of  men.  It 
is  something  which  we  feel  rather  than  see ;  but  I 
do  not  think  that  we  can  be  mistaken  regarding  it. 
It  is  the  way  in  which  the  individual  and  the  com- 
bined life  do  not  hinder,  but  help  each  other,  to  His 
mind.  To  us  the  individual  loses  himself  in  the 
crowd,  and  we  cannot  find  him.  A  new  being — the 
multitude — takes  his  place.  We  cannot  think  that 
it  was  so  with  Jesus.  We  are  sure  that,  to  Him, 
each  person  in  the  crowd  remained  distinct,  in  spite 
of  the  host  by  whom  He  was  surrounded. 

Nay,  more  than  that,  are  we  not  sure  that  the 
person  was  more  distinct  because  of  the  host  in 
whose  midst  his  life  was  set?  There  was  one  token 
of  this  being  so  in  one  event  of  Christ's  life.  Do 
you  remember  where  the  poor  Syrian  woman  crept 
up  and  laid  a  timid  finger  on  His  robes,  and,  when 
Christ  recognized  and  owned  it,  His  disciples  almost 
rebuked  Him  with  their  surprise?  "Master,  the 
multitude  throng  Thee  and  press  Thee;  and  sayest 
Thou,  who  touched  me?"  The  blurring  of  the 
single  face  in  the  great  sea  of  faces,  the  loss  of  the 
one  in  the  many,  the  sacrifice  of  personality  to  so- 
ciety,— all  this,  with  which  we  are  familiar,  we  think 
of  as  wholly  absent  from  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ. 
When  the  great  company  came  pouring  up  the  hill 


138  HUMANITY 

upon  the  other  side  of  Gennesaret,  it  was  as  a 
whole,  making  each  part  of  which  it  was  composed 
more  vividly  distinct,  that  Jesus  saw  the  advancing 
multitude  when  He  "lifted  up  His  eyes." 

We  wrestle  with  the  problem  of  socialism  and  in- 
dividualism, the  problem  of  the  many  and  the  one ; 
and  we  wonder  which  of  the  two  must  be  sacrificed 
to  the  other,  which  of  the  two  shall  ultimately  over- 
come the  other  and  remain  the  triumphant  principle 
of  human  life.  Let  us  be  sure  that  to  Christ,  to 
God,  there  is  no  problem.  Let  us  be  sure,  there- 
fore, that  in  the  end  it  shall  not  be  by  the  victory 
of  either  over  the  other,  but  by  the  perfect  harmo- 
nizing of  the  two,  that  the  perfect  condition  of  hu- 
man life  shall  be  attained.  When  society  shall  be 
complete,  it  shall  perfectly  develop  the  freedom  of 
the  individual.  When  the  individual  shall  be  per- 
fect, he  will  make  in  his  free  and  original  life  his 
appointed  contribution  to  society. 

Therefore — and  here  is  what  it  is  good  for  us  to 
remember — it  is  not  by  elaborate  plans  for  the  build- 
ing of  the  social  structure ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
by  frantic  assertions  of  personal  independence;  but 
by  patiently  and  unselfishly  being  his  own  best  self 
for  the  great  good  of  all,  that  every  man  best  helps 
the  dawning  of  the  Golden  Age.  Many  a  patient 
and  unselfish  worker  is  making  valuable  contribution 
to  the  great  end  who  never  dreams  of  what  he  is 
doing.  Every  man  makes  such  a  contribution  who 
looks  upon  the  crowded  swarm  of  human  life  as 
Christ  looked  upon  it ;  neither  losing  the  man  in  the 
multitude,  nor  the  multitude  in  the  man ;  neither 


HUMANITY  139 

letting  the  forest  drown  the  trees,  nor  letting  the 
trees  dissipate  and  destroy  the  forest. 

Sometimes,  when  for  a  moment  we  catch  the  view 
of  Christ  and  share  His  vision,  there  comes  great 
clearness  into  our  spiritual  experience,  and  that 
which  has  sometimes  been  the  source  of  confusion 
and  obscurity  becomes  the  fountain  of  enlightenment 
and  strength.  Do  you  not  know  how,  sometimes, 
it  is  because  of  the  countless  multitude  of  souls  that 
the  experience  of  each  soul  grows  vague  and  unreal? 
In  such  a  host  does  the  great  Captain  know  and  care 
for  every  soldier?  Does  God  feed  and  guard  and 
educate  me,  individually,  when  all  these  millions 
are  His  children?  Does  the  Holy  Spirit  bring  His 
special  gift  to  this  one  nature  among  all  the  in- 
numerable natures  which  must  have  His  grace? 
And  at  the  last,  shall  this  one  little  life,  which  goes 
trembling  out  of  this  familiar  existence  through  the 
vast  door  of  death,  be  surely  kept  sacred,  and  sepa- 
rate, and  precious,  and  imperishable  in  the  great 
world  of  life  beyond?  These  are  the  haunting 
questions  which  beset  our  souls.  Where  are  the 
answers  to  them,  except  in  this  which  we  believe  to 
have  been  true  of  Jesus  Christ, — that  the  more  men 
there  were,  the  more  clearly  did  each  man  stand  out 
distinct  to  Him  who  knew  and  loved  them  all.  The 
crowd  intensified  and  not  obscured  the  individual. 

Let  that  truth  of  the  Incarnation  be  true  in  all 
the  care  of  God  for  man,  and  does  not  our  anxiety 
— what  is  sometimes  almost  our  terror — pass  away? 
Because  I  am  one  among  millions  of  needy  souls, 
the  Holy  Spirit  shall  the  more  surely  find  me  with 


I40  HUMANITY 

my  own  peculiar  food.  Because  no  man  can  num- 
ber the  immortal,  therefore  my  immortality  is  the 
more  certain,  and  He  who  keeps  all  spirits  will  keep 
mine.  With  such  assurance  I  look  up  and  face  the 
overwhelming  multitude  of  life,  and  am  not  over- 
whelmed, but  filled  with  buoyant  faith  and  carried 
onward  as  on  a  flood  of  strength. 

One  other  impression  of  the  "great  company" 
upon  the  mind  of  Jesus,  I  may  allude  to  in  a  few 
words.  He  must  have  been  filled,  as  He  looked  at 
them,  with  a  sense  of  danger,  and  a  sense  of  hope 
together.  Danger  and  hope,  so  it  would  seem,  be- 
long together  in  this  world  where  we  are  now  living. 
Sometime  a  world  may  come  where  hope  may  be 
conceived  entirely  apart  from  danger ;  but  now  and 
here,  when  man  looks  far  ahead  and  dares  to  antici- 
pate great  things,  the  certainty  that  great  evil  as 
well  as  great  good  may  come  starts  up  at  once  and 
will  not  be  forgotten.  It  started  up  to  Christ,  and 
He  never  tried  to  forget  it.  No  eyes  ever  saw  more 
distinctly  than  His  eyes  saw  the  peril  of  human  life. 
He  read  it  in  every  human  face.  He  had  learned 
it  in  the  temptation  in  the  wilderness.  Only,  be- 
cause He  was  God  and  knew  the  evil  to  be  weaker 
than  the  good,  He  always  kept  the  hope  behind  and 
within  the  danger.  Because  man  had  in  him  the 
power  to  be  this  dreadful  thing,  therefore  he  also 
had  in  him  the  power  to  be  this  splendid  thing.  I 
know  that,  if  we  had  been  in  Jerusalem,  and  had 
met  the  blessed  Saviour  in  the  street,  we  should 
have  read  all  this  in  His  features:  the  fear  and 
hope  together,  the  hope  intensified  by  the  fear,  but 


HUMANITY  141 

always  conquering  it  and  making  Him  eager  to 
call  every  human  creature  with  the  invitation  of 
the  divine  Love,  whose  might  He  knew. 

Shall  we  not  see  all  that  in  His  face  as  He  looks 
at  us?  We  have  not  begun  to  know  our  danger  as 
He  knows  it.  He  is  anxious  for  your  soul  as  you 
never  began  to  be.  But  He  hopes  for  you  as  you 
never  hoped  for  yourself.  Let  His  hope  take  pos- 
session of  you !  Lift  up  your  heart  and  know,  as 
He  knows,  how  perfectly  you  can  be  saved ! 

Thus,  then,  it  is  that  Jesus  Christ  looks  upon 
the  crowded  world :  with  reverence  and  pity ;  with 
the  sight  of  the  whole  and  also  the  recognition  of  the 
single  life ;  with  the  sense  of  danger  and  the  sense  of 
hope.  The  result  of  it  all,  in  Him,  is  that  glorious 
consecration  of  His  whole  Being  to  the  world,  by 
which  He  is  its  Saviour,  Let  us  see  mankind  as 
nobly  as  He  does,  and  we  shall  be  consecrated  like 
Him ;  and  in  some  true,  deep,  blessed  way,  we  shall 
share  His  Saviourship, — perhaps  by  the  sharing  of 
His  Cross,  but  we  shall  share  His  Saviourship. 
What  more  could  man  ask  than  that? 


IX. 
WORD   AND   DEED. 

"  For  he  spake,  and  it  was  done." — Psalm  xxxiii.  9. 

When  David  sang  these  words  in  his  great  Psalm, 
he  was  calling  upon  the  earth  to  fear  the  Lord,  and 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  to  stand  in  awe  of 
Him,  because  He  was  its  Maker:  "For  he  spake, 
and  it  was  done;  he  commanded  and  it  stood  fast." 

No  truth  can  ever  be  opened  to  man's  knowledge 
which  can  supersede  the  simple  dignity  of  that  con- 
ception, that  God  made  the  world.  No  motive  for 
lofty  life  can  be  presented  which  can  outshine  this : 
that,  because  God  made  the  world  and  all  that 
therein  is,  the  world  must  fear  its  Maker  with  that 
fear  which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  The  method 
of  men,  trying  to  get  at  the  true  explanation  of 
things  which  they  see,  is  to  construct  an  hypothesis, 
to  see  how  that  hypothesis  will  meet  the  facts  which 
they  observe,  and  to  modify  their  hypothesis  as  the 
facts  compel  them.  Behind  all  other  hypotheses 
there  must  always  stand  the  first  hypothesis  of  a 
God-Creator.  Before  any  revelation  authenticates 
it,  man,  standing  in  the  midst  of  the  wondrous 
world,  says  to  himself:  "Where  did  it  come  from? 
What  made  it?"  and  the  answer  springs  from  his 

142 


WORD  AND  DEED  143 

own  consciousness:  "Why,  the  only  creative  power 
which  I  know  of  must  have  made  it — a  personal 
Will !  Some  He  must  have  spoken  the  word,  and  it 
was  done."  With  that  hypothesis  he  tests  the 
world,  and  nowhere  does  it  fail  him.  Much  light 
he  gets  upon  the  character  and  intentions  of  this 
sublime  He  who  made  the  world ;  but,  above  it  all, 
clearer  and  clearer  it  grows  to  the  holder  of  that 
hypothesis  continually  that  He  did  make  it.  And 
so  he  is  ready  by  and  by,  when  Revelation  opens  its 
mouth  and  Incarnation  comes,  to  listen  and  look  and 
understand  the  nature  of  the  God  whose  existence 
has  been  to  him  the  key  of  the  world. 

And  so  the  primal  motive  of  all  life  must  be,  as  I 
said,  this  same  Creatorship  which  is  the  final  know- 
ledge. What  is  the  strongest  power  to  make  men 
good,  to  take  them  from  their  sins,  to  turn  them  to 
new  lives?  You  say,  Christ's  Love.  Yes,  but  the 
Love  of  Christ,  remember  always,  is  but  the  reasser- 
tion  of  Creatorship.  It  is  the  Father  claiming  His 
children,  claiming  them  because  they  are  His  child- 
ren;  and  all  that  which  comes  into  the  Christian's 
heart,  and  sets  it  struggling,  yearning  towards  God, 
is  only  the  reawakened  childhood.  It  has  been  em- 
phasized by  danger;  it  is  full  of  special  gratitude  for 
special  love;  but,  after  all,  it  is  the  soul  of  the  child 
finding  out  the  Father.  It  has  its  root  in  the  crea- 
tive act  by  which  God  made  man  when  "He  spake 
and  it  was  done." 

These  thoughts  cannot  but  arise  when  we  speak 
of  God's  act  of  creation,  but  it  is  not  on  these 
thoughts  that  we  will  dwell  now.     I  want  to  have 


144  WORD  AND  DEED 

you  notice  with  me  the  singular  form  of  the  declara- 
tion, and  the  way  in  which  it  puts  what  we  may  call 
the  decisiveness  of  God.  "He  spake,  and  it  was 
done,"  says  David.  Here,  you  see,  is  a  perfect 
meeting  of  the  Word  and  the  Deed,  and  those  two 
in  their  combination  make  the  perfect  life. 

See  what  they  are.  The  word  is  the  completed 
thought.  It  is  the  reasonable  process  of  a  man  who 
has  come  at  last  up  to  the  point  of  resolution  and 
of  declaration.  Not  yet  is  there  anything  to  show 
in  outward  life.  No  material  has  yet  been  touched. 
The  world  seems  the  same  that  it  has  seemed  be- 
fore ;  but  inside  the  man  everything  is  altered.  The 
thought,  the  passion,  the  struggle  of  motive  with 
motive  has  been  going  on,  and  at  last  has  come  to 
a  decision.  The  word  is  ready,  and  is  spoken.  The 
conclusion  is  reached.  The  resolution  is  declared. 
That  moment  always  has  a  special  solemnity  and  in- 
terest when  it  is  recognizable — the  moment  when 
the  word  is  perfect,  but  the  deed  not  yet  begun. 
Such  was  the  moment  when  Abraham  determined 
on  his  journey,  sleeping  his  last  night  in  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees,  with  all  the  Jewish  history  before  him ; 
when  Paul  was  sitting  in  the  house  at  Damascus, 
with  the  determination  of  his  new  life  made,  but  not 
one  stroke  of  work  yet  done  for  Christ ;  when  Co- 
lumbus uttered  his  strong  conviction  to  the  world, 
waiting  only  for  his  ships  to  find  America. 

There  are  moments  in  all  our  lives  which  have  this 
solemnity,  as  we  look  back  upon  them ;  moments 
when  the  word  was  complete,  the  resolution  made, 
but  the  deed  not  yet  begun.     Before  that  moment 


WORD  AND  DEED  145 

there  had  come  the  perplexity  of  puzzled  thought ; 
after  it,  came  all  the  bewildering  detail  of  action. 
But,  just  there,  thought  stood  clear  in  its  conclu- 
sion, and  the  coming  deed  glowed  bright  and  certain 
in  its  promise ;  and  that  was,  what  such  moments  of 
a  man's  life  always  are,  heroic  and  inspiring.  It 
exalted  us  when  we  were  in  it,  and  we  remember  it 
with  joy.  But  yet,  on  the  completed  word  a  deed 
must  follow,  or  the  word  loses  its  beauty  and  dis- 
tresses us.  If,  as  we  look  back,  we  see  our  lives  all 
strown  with  words  that  never  came  to  deeds,  with 
resolutions  that  never  produced  actions,  we  are  as 
unsatisfactory  to  ourselves  as  if  we  saw  our  lives  full 
of  actions  which  had  no  reasonable  resolutions  out 
of  which  they  sprang,  but  were  the  results  of 
thoughtless  whims.  These  make  the  two  kinds  of 
men  who  disappoint  us  always :  the  men  of  words, 
but  not  of  deeds;  the  men  of  deeds,  but  not  of 
words ;  the  men  who  resolve  without  acting,  and  the 
men  who  act  without  resolving ;  for  remember  that 
speech  has  a  deep  meaning  in  the  Bible.  It  is  not 
the  mere  use  of  words.  It  is  that  whole  reasonable 
process  which  culminates  in  the  use  of  words,  in  the 
deliberate  utterance.  This  is  the  high  use  in  which 
the  Lord  Himself  is  called  the  Word  of  God. 

These  two  kinds  of  men,  then,  there  are.  The 
men  of  words  who  are  not  men  of  deeds  think, 
speculate,  dream,  grow  vague,  intangible,  and  help- 
less. The  men  of  deeds  who  are  not  men  of  words 
grow  shallow  and  shortsighted,  practical  only  in  the 
outside  ways  and  little  tricks  of  things.  As  men 
grow  to  be  full  and  complete  men,  the  two  come 


146  WORD  AND  DEED 

together.  The  word  and  the  deed  correspond.  Every 
reasonable  resolution  has  its  action,  and  every  action 
has  its  reasonable  resolution.  The  object  of  all 
education,  whether  of  the  family  or  the  school  or 
the  church,  ought  to  be  to  bring  this  union  to  its 
best  completeness. 

Now,  when  David  says  of  God,  "He  spake,  and 
it  was  done,"  he  is  declaring  that  in  God  the  word 
and  deed  unite  completely.  It  is  impossible  for 
them  to  be  separated.  God  cannot  know  a  truth, 
involving  a  conviction,  that  shall  not  flash  out  some 
action,  as  its  consequence,  to  the  very  ends  of  the 
universe.  And  God  cannot  do  a  deed  out  on  the 
farthest  confines  of  His  eternal  nature,  but  that 
deed  has  its  root  down  in  the  very  deepest  depths 
of  His  nature.  He  never  resolves  but  action  fol- 
lows. He  never  acts  but  resolution  has  gone  be- 
fore. In  this  truth  lies  the  solidity,  the  solemnity, 
the  wonderful  beauty  of  the  world.  God  does  some- 
thing to  you.  He  opens  His  hand  and  fills  your  cup 
with  plenteousness.  Or  is  it  the  opposite?  He 
closes  His  hand,  and  takes  the  joy  and  pride  of  your 
life  away.  Before  He  did  that  deed,  He  spake.  It 
was  the  utterance  of  a  reasonable  resolution.  It 
was  no  generous  nor  cruel  whim.  The  strange 
event,  be  it  all  bright  with  sunshine  or  black  with 
grief,  comes  in  and  sits  down  in  your  life  crowned 
with  God's  intention.  He  did  it,  and  He  meant  to 
do  it. 

And  so,  upon  the  other  hand,  no  word  without 
its  deed.  God's  words  are  words  of  righteousness. 
"All  sin  is  bad;  all  holiness  is  good."     When  once 


WORD  AND  DEED  147 

those  words  have  been  spoken,  evil  must  come  upon 
wickedness;  blessing  must  come  upon  goodness. 
No  power  in  the  universe  can  stop  it.  He  who  tries 
to  be  wicked,  and  yet  enjoy,  casts  himself  between 
a  word  and  a  deed  of  God,  and  must  be  crushed  in 
their  inevitable  meeting.  He  who  tries  to  be  holy 
and  yet  thinks  he  must  be  wretched,  is  amazed  to  see 
how  impossible  that  is.  God  takes  him  up  and  bears 
him,  in  spite  of  himself  and  his  feeble  expectations, 
into  happiness.  Ah  yes ;  the  necessary  union,  the 
necessary  correspondence  of  word  and  deed,  in  God, 
is  what  makes  the  solidity  and  the  solemnity,  the 
awfulness  and  beauty,  of  the  universe  and  of  every 
life. 

If  we  allow  ourselves  to  ask  why  it  is  that  God's 
words  always  produce  deeds,  why  His  resolutions 
always  produce  their  actions,  while  ours  so  often 
only  die  away  in  their  own  echoes,  and  have  no  re- 
sult to  show ;  the  answer,  the  deepest  answer,  I  am 
sure,  will  be  in  this:  that  God's  resolutions  are  real 
resolutions ;  or.  to  put  it  more  simply,  that  God  al- 
ways thoroughly  means  everything  that  He  says. 
It  is  not  simply  the  greatness  of  His  power,  for  there 
are  regions  where  we,  too,  have  power  and  yet  in 
them  our  resolutions  fail, — but  the  real  difference  is 
here:  God's  resolutions  mean  the  things  they  say, 
while  ours  have  only  half  made  up  their  minds. 

We  dwell,  indeed,  on  what  we  choose  to  call  the 
delays  of  God.  There  is  nothing  more  impressive  to 
our  thoughts.  We  know  that  God  decrees  the  sin- 
ner's punishment  or  the  saint's  reward  at  the  very 
moment  of  the  sin  or  holiness;  nay,  in  the  very  sin 


148  WORD  AND  DEED 

or  holiness  itself  the  punishment  or  the  reward  is 
promised  ; — but  years  slip  by,  the  man  grows  old,  and 
only  on  the  gray  hairs,  perhaps,  comes  the  retribu- 
tion of  the  action  which  was  done  in  all  the  flush  of 
youth.  We  watch  and  wonder  at  God's  patience  in 
His  treatment  of  the  nations.  Jerusalem,  Assyria, 
Rome, — the  judgment  of  death  which  they  have  in- 
curred comes  creeping  on  for  centuries  before  it 
fastens  upon  them  and  they  die.  So  everywhere 
^e  see  God's  patience.  But  nowhere  is  there  hesi- 
tation. However  slow  it  comes,  it  comes  with 
absolute  sureness — the  suffering  upon  the  sin,  the 
blessing  on  the  goodness,  the  ruin  on  the  wicked 
nation.  And  we  must  always  remember  that  those 
words  of  our  feebleness — "slow"  and  "quick" — 
mean  nothing  in  the  life  of  Him  who  is  eternal. 

But  with  us  it  is  not  merely  delay.  It  is  a  lack  of 
power  in  the  word  to  turn  itself  into  a  deed  at  all. 
It  is  hesitation.  How  many  times  have  you  said, 
"I  will  give  up  this  bad  habit"?  It  is  not  that  you 
have  seen  that  it  takes  a  long  time  to  give  it  up.  It 
is  not  that  you  began  at  once  and  it  has  taken  you 
longer  than  you  thought  it  would.  It  is  that  your 
word  was  not  strong  with  real  intention.  You  did 
not  really  mean  what  you  said.  Therefore  the  deed 
never  came.  How  often  we  say :  "I  will  go  into  the 
heavenly  life.  I  will  not  live  to  myself;  I  will  live 
to  God  and  God's  children."  We  speak  and  it  is 
not  done,  because  our  speech  was  not  strong  and 
determined.  Alas  for  our  poor  resolutions !  Oh,  the 
woeful,  woeful  lack  in  our  lives  of  the  decisiveness 
of  God!     It  g:rows  more  and  more  clear  to  me — the 


WORD  AND  DEED  149 

power  that  belongs  to  self-consecration  and  absolute 
determination.  Men  do  what  they  mean  to  do. 
For  the  will  is  a  part  of  God  in  man,  and  has  some 
of  His  absoluteness  and  certainty. 

It  seems  to  me  that  no  thoughtful  man  watches 
the  state  of  things  to-day,  without  seeing  continual 
illustrations  of  a  very  curious  and  important  truth 
with  regard  to  this  matter  of  the  will  and  its  power 
of  decision.  That  truth  is  this:  Decision  is  easy  in 
the  lowest  and  crudest  conditions  of  human  life;  and 
it  is  easy  again  in  the  highest  conditions  of  human 
life;  but  there  are  middle  conditions  in  which  de- 
cision becomes  difficult,  and  men's  minds  float  about 
loose  and  unsettled.  Just  consider  if  that  be  not  so. 
You  take  a  child,  and  how  quickly  he  decides  every- 
thing. Promptly  and  sharply  his  word  leaps  into 
action.  He  speaks  and  acts.  There  are  very  few 
considerations  in  his  mind.  Everything  is  simple 
to  him,  so  simple  that  he  can  hardly  conceive  how  it 
can  seem  otherwise  to  any  one.  Then  take  the 
other  end — the  full-grown  man.  He  too  decides. 
With  many  more  elements  to  harmonize,  with  many 
more  aspects  of  the  subject  to  adjust  than  the  child 
had,  the  mature  man  feels  the  necessity  of  decision, 
and  grasps,  as  it  were,  the  mass  of  many  thoughts 
into  his  hand,  and  compacts  them  into  a  solid  reso- 
lution. But  between  the  two,  what  have  we? — the 
irresolute  and  vague  and  doubtful  years  of  him  who 
is  neither  boy  nor  man,  the  years  in  which  the  direct- 
ness of  childhood  has  been  lost,  and  the  higher  di- 
rectness of  manhood  not  attained,  the  years  when 
crowding  thoughts    of  many  kinds  make   it  seem 


15©  WORD  AND  DEED 

often  impossible  to  decide  on  anything,  the  misty 
and  uncertain  years  of  young  manhood  and  young 
womanhood. 

The  same  thing  is  true  about  the  degrees  of  cul- 
ture, independent  of  age.  The  savage  or  the  brute, 
whether  he  is  old  or  young,  decides  easily,  decides 
instantly.  The  beast  sees  his  prey,  and  springs  upon 
it.  The  savage  sees  his  enemy,  and  the  javelin  flies. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  man  of  highest  culture,  the 
finished  soldier,  the  accomplished  statesman,  the  ex- 
perienced merchant,  he  again  is  quick  as  lightning. 
He  speaks,  and  it  is  done.  He  summons  with  a 
quick,  imperious  call  one  summary  result  out  of  the 
complication  of  the  business  that  lies  before  him.  It 
is  the  man  between  the  two,  the  man  who  has  left 
the  simpleness  of  the  brute,  and  come  in  sight  of 
many  considerations  which  the  savage  never  dreamed 
of,  but  has  not  yet  passed  out  into  the  highest  cul- 
ture, who,  Hamlet-like,  hesitates  and  fears  to  act. 
There  are  faith  and  action  at  the  bottom  and  faith 
and  action  at  the  top  of  life ;  between  the  two  lies 
inability  to  decide. 

It  is  a  sign  of  where  our  age  stands,  of  what  mul- 
titudes of  minds  in  it  have  left  the  lowest  without 
having  attained  the  highest  culture,  that  so  many 
men  in  our  age  are  haunted  by  indecision.  Light 
at  the  bottom  of  the  mountain  and  light  at  the  top; 
but  half-way  up  clouds  and  mist !  This  is  the  order 
of  the  mental  conditions  of  mankind.  First  comes 
he  who  leaps  at  conclusions  without  evidence;  then 
he  who  questions  everything;  and  then  he  who  holds 
truth  which  he  has  proved.     The  dogmatist,  the 


WORD  AND  DEED  151 

skeptic,  the  believer,  such  is  the  order  of  the  phases 
of  the  growing  mind. 

There  is  in  the  midst  of  all  indecision  and  all 
doubt  a  constant  conviction  that  not  these,  but  de- 
cision and  belief,  are  the  highest  condition  for  man- 
kind. The  highest  men  have  come  out  of  the  mists, 
and  are  living  in  action  and  faith.  And  what  de- 
livers a  man  from  the  confusion  and  helplessness  of 
the  middle  state  is  really  a  moral  need.  This  is 
most  interesting  and  important.  When  a  man's  in- 
tellectual life  has  become  snarled  and  confused,  and 
with  all  his  thinking  he  cannot  decide  what  he  ought 
to  do,  then  it  is  that  a  moral  necessity  steps  in  and 
furnishes  the  point  about  which  all  this  mental  dis- 
turbance crystallizes  into  coherency  and  purpose. 
A  young  man  has  so  perplexed  himself  with  many 
schemes  of  life  that  it  seems  impossible  for  him  to 
settle  upon  any  one  thing  and  do  it.  But  by  and 
by  his  duty  to  his  family,  the  need  of  making  bread 
to  put  into  his  children's  mouths,  steps  in,  and  he  is 
compelled  to  fix  his  will  on  something,  to  strike  the 
balance  of  his  long  debate  and  go  to  work.  A  man 
has  tossed  back  and  forth  the  arguments  for  two 
sorts  of  doctrine,  all  the  while  his  heart  no  more 
holding  any  faith  than  the  juggler  holds  the  balls 
which  he  flings  from  hand  to  hand  in  quick  succes- 
sion. What  finally  stops  his  weary  and  unsatisfac- 
tory debating  is  the  absolute  necessity,  for  the 
regulation  of  his  life,  that  he  should  have  something 
to  believe.  It  is  the  felt  power  of  temptation,  the 
absolute  inability  to  meet  sorrow  with  a  debate 
instead  of  a  faith. 


152  WORD  AND  DEED 

Those  are  the  things  that  must  break  up  every 
man's  indecision  at  last.  If  you  are  a  young  man 
questioning  what  you  will  do  with  your  life,  it  must 
be  the  duty  of  being  something  for  other  men. 
Certainly  it  must  be  duty  somewhere  that  saves  you 
and  brings  you  out  a  true  man,  and  makes  you  really 
live  a  life.  If  you  are  an  unbeliever,  perplexed  with 
many  doubts,  I  tell  you  earnestly  that  the  intellect 
will  never  clarify  itself  by  its  own  action.  It  must 
be  duty,  duty  demanding  the  power  for  its  task 
which  nothing  but  belief  can  give  it ;  this  it  must  be 
which  throws  light  into  the  darkness,  and  scatters 
the  mist,  and  makes  you  a  believer.  It  is  the  man, 
"perplexed  in  mind,  but  pure  in  deed,"  of  whom  it 
is  written  that  "At  last  he  beat  his  music  out." 

I  believe  with  all  my  heart  in  this  necessity  of 
the  moral  to  the  intellectual  man,  I  believe  it  so 
strongly  that  if  a  man  is  not  trying  to  do  right,  if  he 
has  not  got  the  idea  of  duty,  I  count  his  judgments, 
upon  even  the  most  purely  intellectual  questions 
of  religious  faith,  of  very  little  worth.  The  selfish 
man  who  says  that  the  divine  self-sacrifice  is  in- 
credible ;  the  man  who  never  grapples  with  tempta- 
tion and  so  never  feels  the  need  of  divine  help,  and 
yet  who  says  that  the  miracles  of  Christ  are  impos- 
sible ;  the  man  who  undertakes  no  tasks  so  spiritual 
that  they  demand  eternity  for  their  accomplishment, 
and  yet  who  denies  the  everlasting  life;  the  man 
who  never  cares  for  his  own  soul,  and  then  says, 
"There  is  no  God" — I  find  but  little  power  in  the 
skepticism  of  such  men.  It  is  the  soul  struggling 
to  do  right,  and  yet  finding  it  hard  to  get  hold  of 


WORD  AND  DEED  153 

truth — that  soul  which  we  do  see  here  and  there 
—which  is  terrible.  In  God  Himself  the  moral  and 
the  intellectual  are  but  one.  His  goodness  and  His 
wisdom  perfectly  belong  together.  And  it  is  Duty 
that  settles,  with  strong  but  gentle  touch,  the  min- 
gled problems  of  our  life.  The  mother  learns  a 
faith  above  her  child's  cradle  that  she  never  knew 
before ;  and  the  man  setting  out  to  do  some  hard 
work  for  his  land  or  his  friend  calls  on  a  God  of 
whom  he  has  been  debating  with  himself  whether, 
indeed,  there  were  a  God  at  all. 

I  have  been  speaking  about  decision  in  general. 
I  want  to  bring  what  I  have  been  saying  to  a  point 
and  make  it  bear  directly  on  the  great  decision  of  a 
man's  life — that  decision  by  which  he  becomes  a 
Christian.  There  is  one  act  which  goes  beyond 
and  includes  all  other  acts.  It  is  the  act  in  which, 
won  by  the  authority  and  love  of  Jesus  Christ,  a 
man  takes  his  whole  self  and  gives  it  up  into  the 
mastery  of  the  Lord,  making  himself  thenceforth 
His  disciple.  That  act  of  consecration  and  sur- 
render, how  differently  it  looks  to  different  men; 
nay,  how  differently  it  looks  to  the  same  man  at 
two  different  times !  It  is  the  very  hardest  or  the 
very  easiest  act  in  all  the  world ;  so  hard  that  it 
seems  truly  impossible,  or  so  easy  that  it  is  amazing 
how  any  man  can  keep  from  doing  it.  The  simplest 
natures  often  find  it  very  easy.  The  child  learns  of 
its  Saviour's  love,  and  to  accept  that  Saviour,  to  ask 
Him  to  forgive  its  sins,  to  make  His  will  its  law, 
seems  to  the  child's  heart  the  easiest  and  most 
natural  of  all  things.     The  nature  of  the  man   in 


154  WORD  AND  DEED 

penitence  is  the  child's  nature  over  again,  and  so  for 
him,  too,  the  trust  in  Him  who  is  all-trustworthy 
seems  not  difficult.  But,  when  the  great  act  of  dedi- 
cation is  not  done  at  once,  there  come  in  all  man- 
ner of  complicating  questions  about  Christ  and  His 
mercy,  and  they  make  irresoluteness,  the  condition 
of  unresolve  in  which  such  hosts  of  men  are  standing. 
Oh,  how  familiar  those  questions  have  grown ! 
how  dusty  and  forlorn  they  sound,  as  we  bring  them 
out  of  the  thousand  experiences  in  which  they  have 
lain  and  rankled  so  miserably!  "Is  Christ  ready  to 
receive  me,  and  must  I  not  do  something  before  I 
come  to  Him?  Is  it  indeed  necessary  that  I  should 
own  my  faith  in  Him?  What  will  happen  to  me  if 
I  do  not  come?  Do  I  believe  enough  to  come? 
How  is  it  with  this  other  man?  How  is  it  with 
these  heathen?"  These  are  the  questions  that 
make  men  hesitate  about  the  Christian  act.  They 
are  always  lying  in  wait.  If  the  soul  touched  by 
the  Saviour  does  not  instantly  and  spontaneously 
give  itself  to  Him,  then  they  come  flocking  in.  And 
when  they  have  once  taken  possession  of  a  heart, 
then,  you  know — so  many  of  you  there  are  who 
know — what  comes,  what  hesitating,  what  unrest, 
what  a  constant  sense  that  there  is  something  which 
you  ought  to  do,  which  yet  you  will  not  do,  what 
putting  off  and  putting  off,  what  dissatisfaction 
everywhere  year  after  year,  till  at  last  the  time 
arrives  when,  through  every  hesitation,  you  step 
right  across  and  do  the  act,  and  really  give  yourself, 
body  and  soul,  to  Christ.  There  is  the  only  escape. 
There  is  the  only  daylight. 


WORD  AND  DEED  155 

But  when  it  comes,  it  is  not  like  the  first  glad 
turning  to  the  Saviour  which  might  have  been  be- 
fore all  these  sad  years  of  questioning  began.  It  is 
soberer  and  calmer.  No  longer  possible  for  you  is 
the  happy  taking  of  Christ's  service  as  if  there  were 
no  thought  of  anything  beside ;  no  longer  possible 
for  you  is  the  fresh,  enthusiastic  faith  of  the  young 
Christian  all  glowing  with  the  joy  of  giving  his 
whole  life  to  Jesus;  but  still  there  is  something  very 
rich,  if  you  will  only  take  it, — the  sober,  deep,  and 
soul-possessing  joy  of  a  man  who  has  hesitated  long, 
and  asked  many  and  many  a  question,  now  at  last 
coming  in  the  full  strength  of  manhood,  and  resting 
his  soul,  heavy  with  its  long-accumulated  need,  all 
in  one  great  reasonable  act,  upon  a  mercy  which 
has  convinced  him  of  its  mercifulness  by  the  way 
in  which  it  has  waited  for  him  through  all  his 
hesitations. 

And  now,  observe  that  when  this  decision  comes, 
when  the  hesitation  of  the  life  gathers  itself  up  at 
last,  and  with  one  total  consecration  gives  itself  to 
Christ,  it  is  a  moral  act  that  does  it.  The  intel- 
lectual elements  are  already  there.  "How  shall 
they  believe  in  Him  of  whom  they  have  not  heard?  " 
says  St.  Paul.  But  this  man  has  heard,  year  after 
year,  of  Christ.  All  of  His  work  has  been  abun- 
dantly familiar.  It  has  lain  so  long  in  the  mind  that 
it  has  caught  the  dust  of  floating  difificulties  that  are 
not  really  a  part  of  itself.  What  is  needed  is  not 
more  knowledge ;  it  is  something  that  shall  transfer 
the  knowledge  into  action.     It  is  Decision. 

And  that,  surely,  is  moral.     It  grows  from  moral 


156  WORD  AND  DEED 

needs.  It  acts  by  moral  powers.  Indeed,  it  corre- 
sponds exactly  to  the  act  which  one  of  those  people 
who  were  with  Jesus  in  Palestine  did  when  he  be- 
came the  Lord's  disciple.  He  had  known  all  about 
Jesus  before.  He  had  heard  of  Him.  He  had 
heard  Him.  He  had  discussed  His  claims.  He  had 
looked  up  the  Scriptures,  to  see  how  this  Teacher  cor- 
responded with  the  old  Teachers.  He  had  watched 
other  men  who  had  come  to  Christ,  as  interesting 
phenomena.  Could  you  have  a  truer  picture  of  the 
position  in  which  many  a  man  here  and  now  stands 
concerning  the  Saviour?  But  some  day  there  came 
a  great  need  into  that  Jew's  household.  Into  the 
peace  and  composure  dropped  a  hot  and  burning 
pain.  Perhaps  sickness  smote  him  who  had  never 
known  what  it  was  to  feel  an  ache  before.  Perhaps 
death  came  and  stood  at  the  door  and  beckoned; 
and  some  one,  the  dearest  in  the  household,  grew 
pale  as  if  he  knew  the  summons  was  for  him,  and 
began  to  gather  up  his  reluctant  robes,  to  follow  the 
austere  messenger.  Perhaps  something  deeper  than 
either  of  these  things  came.  Perhaps  the  man's  soul 
itself  grew  troubled.  A  deep  dissatisfaction  settled 
on  it.  Its  selfishness,  its  worldliness,  dismayed  it. 
It  cried  out  at  its  own  uselessness.  It  was  sorry  for 
its  sin. 

In  either  case,  what  followed?  How  all  that  had 
been  learned  before  of  the  Saviour  sprang  into 
clearness,  grew  compact  with  force !  The  need 
took  everything  the  man  had  thought  before,  and 
crowned  it  with  decision.  He  who  had  reasoned 
and  reasoned,  talked  and  talked  before,  now  "spake, 


WORD  AND  DEED  157 

and  it  was  done."  Do  you  not  hear  the  rushing 
of  the  centurion's  horses  across  the  hills  to  Caper- 
naum, to  bring  Jesus  Christ  where  his  servant  is 
lying  sick?  Do  you  not  see  the  figure  of  the  poor 
woman  creeping  into  the  banquet-room  in  her  shame 
and  love?  Do  you  not  hear  the  timid  knock  in 
the  darkness  of  Nicodemus  at  the  Master's  humble 
doorway?  In  every  case  the  relation  between  the 
intellectual  conviction  and  the  moral  act  is  plain. 
The  thought  and  reasoning  and  observation  have 
gathered  the  material  for  decision  and  piled  it  in  the 
life,  and  then  the  spark  of  a  need  falls  into  the  tinder 
and  the  decision  blazes  in  an  instant. 

People  talk  about  "sudden  conversions,"  "Do 
you  believe  in  them?  "  says  one.  "You  do  not  be- 
lieve in  them,  do  you?"  says  another.  My  friends, 
there  never  was  a  sudden  conversion,  and  there  never 
was  a  conversion  that  was  not  sudden.  Never  was 
there  one  that  had  not  been  made  ready  beforehand, 
never  one  which,  having  been  made  ready  before- 
hand, did  not  come  by  one  strong  resolution,  one 
supreme  decisive,  "I  will."  There  is  a  sudden  con- 
version of  which  men  talk  which  is  no  conversion. 
No  change  of  life,  no  change  of  heart,  nothing  but 
just  a  mood,  the  momentary  impression  of  the  sensi- 
bilities by  the  sweet  sound  of  a  name,  or  the  im- 
perious declamation  of  a  speaker,  or  the  plaintive 
singing  of  a  hymn.  The  trouble  with  that  is,  not 
that  it  is  sudden,  but  that  it  is  not  conversion.  But 
the  true  conversion  is  always  sudden,  and  never 
sudden. 

Look  at  the  thief  upon  the  cross  beside  the  dying 


158  WORD  AND  DEED 

Jesus.  If  ever  any  man  seemed  to  be  suddenly  con- 
verted,  it  was  he.  But  who  can  tell  how  much, 
before  his  crucifixion,  in  all  the  wild  days  of  his 
wickedness,  he  had  known  of  Him  who  was  to  be 
the  sharer  of  his  suffering?  Or,  if  we  allow  ourselves 
no  such  conjecture  as  that,  still  we  must  remember 
that  he  saw  upon  the  cross  beside  him  the  nature  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  its  supremest  manifestation.  The 
last  veil  was  drawn  aside,  and  the  very  heart  of  the 
Divine  Sufferer  was  laid  bare.  And  the  thief,  too, 
saw  with  perceptions  quickened  by  his  own  agony, 
and  by  the  terrible  intensity  of  his  need.  No  won- 
der if  his  suffering  eyes  saw  into  the  Saviour's 
suffering  love  with  most  exceptional  clearness  and 
quickness.  No  wonder  if  he  gathered  a  knowledge 
of  Christ  in  that  hour  while  they  hung  together, 
which  less  intense  perceptions  would  have  taken  a 
long  time  to  gather.  It  was  the  experience  of  years 
compressed  into  the  agony  of  an  awful  hour.  And 
so  when  at  the  last,  he  broke  down  and  gave  way, 
and  cried  out  from  his  cross,  "Lord,  remember  me 
when  thou  comest  into  thy  kingdom!"  it  was  as 
truly  the  completion  of  a  process  as  when,  through 
years  of  study  and  reflection,  some  placid  soul  ac- 
cumulates those  thoughts  of  Christ  and  His  salva- 
tion which  some  shock  of  overwhelming  need  finally 
crystallizes  into  the  strong  resolution  to  come  to 
Christ.  There  comes  a  moment  when  the  resistance 
gives  way  before  the  weight,  whether  that  weight  be 
the  force  of  the  cannon  ball  that  comes  crashing 
through  the  wall,  or  the  pressure  of  the  snow  that 
has  gathered  flake  by  flake  upon  the  roof. 


WORD  AND  DEED  159 

Indeed  everything  in  this  world  is  sudden  and  not 
sudden.  The  sunrise  that  has  been  creeping  up  the 
east  for  hours,  and  then  leaps  in  a  moment  from  the 
eastern  hills;  the  onset  of  an  army  which  has  slowly 
gathered  its  strength  together  out  of  cottages  and 
cities,  and  then  falls  like  an  eagle  on  the  enemy ;  the 
breaking  up  of  a  kingdom  which  has  been  growing 
rotten  at  the  heart,  and  in  some  still  noontide  of 
history  drops  into  ruin ;  the  coming  of  a  boy  to 
manhood;  the  bursting  of  a  plant  to  flower; — all 
things  are  sudden  and  not  sudden. 

And  so  must  be  the  coming  of  man  to  Christ. 
"Coming  to  Christ !  " — I  love  those  words.  I  be- 
lieve there  are  no  words  that  have  meant  so  much  to 
human  ears  as  those  words  have  meant.  To  come 
to  Christ  is  the  completest  act  that  any  man  can  do. 
It  is  the  acceptance  of  His  forgiveness,  the  reliance 
upon  His  help,  and  the  gradual  growth  into  His 
character.  Is  not  that  plain?  Is  there  anything 
mysterious  or  unintelligible  about  it?  There  is  one 
Being,  and  only  one  Being,  who  can  forgive  you 
for  your  sins,  and  that  is  the  God  whom  Christ 
manifests.  There  is  only  one  Being  who  can  make 
you  live  a  new  life,  and  that  is  the  present,  ever- 
living  Christ,  to  whom  you  can  pray,  whose  soul 
your  soul  can  touch.  There  is  one  Image,  growing 
into  which  you  shall  be  perfect.  It  is  the  Image  of 
Christ.  Now,  when  you  ask  Him  to  forgive  you, 
when  you  ask  Him  to  help  you,  and,  by  any  culture 
that  He  will,  to  make  you  like  Himself, — that  is 
coming  to  Christ.  When  you  have  done  that,  you 
have  come  to  Christ.     It  begins  when  you  lay  hold 


i6o  WORD  AND  DEED 

upon  the  borders  of  His  help.  It  is  finished  only 
when  you  have  attained  His  Christliness.  When 
you  have  made  up  your  mind  to  do  that,  you  have 
resolved  to  come  to  Christ. 

Whether  it  be  sudden  or  gradual,  evidently  that 
makes  no  difference.  That  is  a  question  of  curiosity. 
But  whether  you  do  it  or  not,' — on  that  hangs  every- 
thing. There  are  men  who  have  been  gathering 
material  for  that  resolution  for  years.  Now  the 
spark  must  touch  the  tinder.  Now  the  resolution 
must  be  made.  Now,  having  seen  Christ  so  long, 
you  must  give  yourself  to  Christ. 

One  last  barrier,  perhaps,  stands  between  you  and 
the  Christian  Life.  It  may  be  fear!  If  it  is,  lay 
hold  of  Christ's  promises.  You  cannot  fear  God  if 
you  really  know  what  He  is.  Does  the  child  fear 
the  mother's  bosom?  Does  the  bird  fear  its  home 
nest?  Or,  it  may  be  pride !  If  it  is,  rise  to  a  higher 
pride.  Grow  indifferent  to  all  that  men  will  say 
about  you  if  you  become  a  Christian,  by  hearing, 
above  everything  that  they  say,  the  songs  of  the 
angels,  among  whom,  Christ  says,  there  is  joy  over 
every  sinner  that  repenteth.  Let  to-day  be  the 
strong  day  of  your  life,  the  day  when  you  "spake, 
and  it  was  done  ' ' ;  the  day  when  you  gave  yourself 
to  the  living,  loving  Christ,  and  He  took  you  into 
His  Life  and  Love. 


X. 

THE   TREE   OF   LIFE. 

•*  And  he  placed  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  Cherubims, 
and  a  flaming  sword  which  turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of 
the  tree  of  life," — Genesis  iii.  24. 

The  recent  discussions  about,  and  criticisms  of, 
the  first  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  have  left  a 
certain  vague  and  uncomfortable  feeling  in  the  minds 
of  many  men.  Not  a  few  people,  probably,  think 
in  a  dim  sort  of  way  that  geology,  or  something  else, 
has  made  those  chapters  of  very  doubtful  worth. 
The  worst  part  of  this  feeling  is  that  it  robs  the 
early  story  of  our  race  of  the  spiritual  power  that  it 
possesses.  Apart  from  the  question  of  its  historic 
character,  the  account  of  man's  origin  which  is 
given  in  Genesis  is  profoundly  true  to  man's  spiri- 
tual experience,  and  its  imagery  is  representative  of 
perpetual  and  universal  truth.  Among  its  images 
one  of  the  most  prominent  and  striking  is  this  one 
of  the  "Tree  of  Life."  Let  us  try,  with  the  beauti- 
ful words  of  the  Genesis-story  fresh  in  our  minds,  to 
see  if  we  can  get  at  the  meaning  of  it,  and  under- 
stand what  is  meant  by  the  history  of  the  tree  of  life 
which  runs  through  all  the  Bible. 

Let  us  briefly  recall  the  story.  In  the  garden 
I6i 


i62  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

where  God  first  placed  man,  the  scene  of  his  earliest 
experiences,  it  is  said  that  God,  his  Creator,  planted 
two  trees.  There  were  many  others,  but  these  two 
were  noticeable  and  distinct.  One  of  them  was  the 
Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil,  and  the 
other  was  the  Tree  of  Life.  There  they  stood  side 
by  side,  both  beautiful,  both  tempting.  But  on  one 
of  them — the  most  tempting— a  prohibition  is  laid. 
Of  the  tree  of  knowledge  man  must  not  taste.  But 
man  rebels,  wilfully,  independently,  against  God's 
word,  and  does  eat  of  the  tree.  The  consequence 
is  that  he  is  not  allowed  to  eat  of  the  other  tree. 
He  is  driven  out  of  the  garden  where  it  stands,  and 
is  forbidden  to  return ;  and  his  return  is  made  im- 
possible by  "cherubims,  and  a  flaming  sword  which 
turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of 
life." 

Thus  begins  the  long  career  of  humanity.  Man 
is  forced  to  undertake  the  work  and  drudgery  of 
living.  The  centuries,  laden  with  wars  and  pains 
and  hopes  and  fears  and  disappointments  and  suc- 
cesses, start  on  their  slow  procession.  But  no  more 
is  heard  of  the  tree  of  life.  It  is  not  mentioned 
again  in  the  course  of  the  Bible.  It  is  left  behind 
the  closed  gate  and  the  flaming  sword,  until  we  are 
surprised,  at  the  extreme  other  end  of  the  Bible,  the 
New  Testament,  to  see  it  suddenly  reappear.  In  the 
book  of  St.  John's  Revelation,  where  the  promises 
of  the  world's  final  glory  are  gathered,  this  promise 
stands  among  the  brightest:  "To  him  that  over- 
cometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life,  which  is 
in  the  midst  of  the  Paradise  of  God."     The  long- 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  163 

lost  tree  is  not  lost  after  all.  God  has  only  been 
keeping  it  out  of  sight ;  and  at  last  He  brings  man 
to  it  and  tells  him  to  eat  his  fill.  "In  the  midst  of 
the  street  of  it  and  on  either  side  of  the  river,  was 
there  the  tree  of  life,  which  bare  twelve  manner  of 
fruits,  and  yielded  her  fruit  every  month ;  and  the 
leaves  of  the  tree  were  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 
Into  this  glory  the  angels  of  God  are  to  bring  His 
people  at  the  last. 

This  is  the  story.  And  now,  what  does  it  mean? 
Certainly  nobody  can  read  it  and  not  be  sure  that 
the  element  of  allegory  is  very  large  in  it.  What- 
ever literal  events  may  correspond  to  it  at  the  be- 
ginning or  at  the  end  of  the  human  history,  certainly 
that  losing  and  finding  again  of  the  tree  of  life  may 
be  taken  to  represent  the  course  of  man's  career  in 
spiritual  things,  the  way  in  which  the  race  and  the 
individual  are  trained  and  punished  and  rewarded. 
That  interpretation,  at  least,  is  open  to  us,  because 
that  meaning  of  the  story  finds  its  commentary  in 
our  own  experience,  and  in  all  the  history  of  man- 
kind. If  we  can  understand  that  meaning,  we  have 
reached  some  idea  of  the  purpose  for  which  the  reve- 
lation of  the  Book  of  Genesis  was  given. 

And  that  meaning  is  not  hard  to  find.  The  tree 
of  life  evidently  signifies  the  fulness  of  human  exist- 
ence,— that  complete  exercise  of  every  power,  that 
roundness  and  perfectness  of  being  which  was  in 
God's  mind  when  He  made  man  in  His  own  image. 
It  represents  not  mere  endurance,  not  merely  an 
existence  which  is  going  to  last  forever.  It  repre- 
sents quality  more  than  quantity,  or  quantity  only 


i64  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

as  it  is  the  result  of  quality.  To  eat  of  the  tree  of 
life  is  to  enter  into  and  occupy  the  fulness  of  hu- 
man existence,  to  enjoy  and  exercise  a  life  absolute 
and  perfect,  to  live  in  the  full  completeness  of  our 
powers.  We  can  feel,  I  think,  how  this  luxurious- 
ness  and  fulness  is  naturally  embodied  under  the 
figure  of  a  tree.  In  many  myths  of  many  races,  the 
tree  has  seemed  the  fittest  symbol  of  the  life  of 
man;  and  the  tree  perfect  in  God's  garden  is  the 
truest  picture  of  man's  whole  nature  complete  under 
His  care. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  represents  that  mottled  and  mingled 
experience  of  life  by  which  men's  lives  are  formed, 
their  understandings  opened,  their  characters  de- 
cided. To  eat  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil — what  is  it  but  to  go  through  just  what  you  and 
I  have  gone  through  ever  since  we  were  children? 
It  is  to  deal  with  life ;  to  come,  by  contact  with  the 
world,  to  judgments  of  what  is  good  and  what  is 
bad ;  to  form  habits  of  thinking  and  ways  of  feeling 
about  men  and  women  and  about  their  actions.  In 
one  word,  to  have  had  experience  is  to  have  eaten 
of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  The 
little,  irresponsible  child  has  never  tasted  it.  It  is 
its  savor  in  the  grown  man's  mouth  which  gives  his 
face  its  soberness,  and  oftentimes  its  bitterness. 

What,  then,  is  the  truth  about  these  trees?  He 
who  wilfully  and  rebelliously,  in  his  own  way  and 
not  in  God's  way,  eats  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  he 
shall  be  shut  out  from  the  tree  of  life.  He  who 
wantonly,  selfishly,  and  by  the  dictates  of  his  own 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  165 

appetites,  uses  his  powers  and  wins  his  experience, 
shall  not  come  to  the  fulness  of  those  powers,  nor 
get  the  best  out  of  life.  He  who  insists  on  knowing 
things  or  doing  things  away  from  God,  shall  not  rise 
to  the  completest  capacity  of  skill  or  strength  or 
knowledge.  Wilfulness,  selfishness,  independence, 
self-confidence,  shut  man  out  from  the  perfection  of 
his  life. 

And  one  point  more.  Adam  and  Eve  being  thus 
driven  out  from  the  tree  of  life,  who  were  the  guards 
that  stood  to  hinder  their  return?  Cherubims,  and  a 
flaming  sword  which  turned  every  way.  And  the 
cherub  in  Scripture  is  a  being  with  a  certain  sym- 
bolic character.  He  is  ordinarily  represented  as  a 
composite  creature-form,  as  a  winged  man  or  a 
human-headed  beast — a  way  to  represent  that  com- 
bination of  intelligence  and  force  which  was  also  ex- 
pressed in  the  Egyptian  sphynx  and  in  the  winged 
bulls  and  lions  of  Assyria.  The  essential  idea  of  the 
cherubims  seems  to  have  been  that  they  represented 
the  forces  of  nature  as  the  servants  of  God.  "The 
Lord  sitteth  between  the  cherubims,  be  the  earth 
never  so  unquiet,"  says  David,  and  in  another 
psalm,  "He  rode  upon  a  cherub  and  did  fly." 
These  forces  of  nature,  these  things  of  the  world 
about  us,  these  objects  and  circumstances,  made  by 
God  to  assist  in  the  pleasure  and  culture  of  man- 
kind,— these  same  things  they  are  which,  when  man 
is  rebellious  and  selfish,  stand  between  him  and  his 
fullest  life.  Those  objects  and  circumstances  which, 
if  a  man  were  docile  and  humble  and  lived  his  life 
with  and  under  God,  would  all  be  developing  and 


i66  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

perfecting  him,  making  him  stronger,  making  him 
happier, — all  those  things,  just  as  soon  as  a  man  cuts 
himself  off  from  God  and  insists  on  getting  know- 
ledge and  doing  work  by  himself,  become  his  ene- 
mies. They  hinder  him  instead  of  helping  him  ;  they 
are  always  pulling  him  down  instead  of  lifting  him 
up;  making  him  a  worse  and  smaller  instead  of  a 
better  and  larger  man. 

Now,  follow  on  with  the  parable.  Man  has  been 
driven  out,  and  the  cherubims  are  keeping  guard. 
The  tree  of  life  disappears  from  man's  sight,  but  it 
is  not  lost.  Man  is  driven  out  of  the  garden  where 
it  stands,  but  immediately  the  education  begins 
which,  if  he  will  submit  to  it,  is  to  bring  him  back 
at  last  to  the  Paradise  of  God  where  the  tree  of  life 
will  be  restored  to  him.  And  all  the  training  that 
comes  in  between  is  of  one  sort.  Everything  from 
Genesis  to  Revelation  has  one  purpose, — to  teach 
men  the  hopelessness,  the  folly,  the  unsatisfactori- 
ness,  of  a  merely  wilful  and  selfish  life ;  to  bring  men 
by  every  discipline  of  sorrow  or  joy  to  see  the  noble- 
ness and  fruitfulness  of  obedience  and  consecration. 
When  that  is  learned,  then  the  lost  tree  reappears. 
Hidden  through  all  the  lingering  centuries,  there  it 
is,  when  man  is  ready  for  it,  blooming  in  the  Para- 
dise of  God. 

Is  not  the  meaning  of  that  symbol  plain?  Is  not 
the  truth  it  teaches  worthy  of  a  revelation?  The 
highest,  fullest  life  of  man  has  ceased  to  be  actual 
upon  the  earth.  You  cannot  find  one  man  who  is 
living  it,  not  one  who,  in  some  part  of  his  nature  or 
his  conduct,  is  not  pinched  and  meagre,  missing  the 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  167 

completeness  for  which  he  was  made.  But  the  pos- 
sibility of  that  highest  life  never  has  been  lost.  It 
is  waiting  till  man  is  able  to  reclaim  it.  And  man 
shall  reclaim  it  just  as  soon  as  he  is  completely  in 
harmony  with  and  obedient  to  God. 

One  other  point  comes  in, — not  very  clearly,  but 
with  a  suggestion  that  completes  the  picture.  Again 
and  again  in  Scripture  we  read  of  the  angels  as  God's 
agents  in  the  restoration  of  His  people  to  their  long- 
lost  glory.  "The  reapers  are  the  angels,"  in  the 
mighty  harvest.  The  beggar  Lazarus,  after  all  his 
waiting  and  wretchedness  was  over,  was  "carried  by 
the  angels  into  Abraham's  Bosom. ' '  And  the  angels 
are  said  to  watch  with  joy  as  each  new  repentant 
sinner  claims  forgiveness  and,  being  forgiven,  re- 
turns into  harmony  with  God  and  into  his  possibility 
of  perfectness.  It  is  not  clearly  said,  but  if,  among 
these  rescuing  and  helping  angels,  there  are  found 
the  cherubims  who  were  set  to  guard  the  gate  of  the 
first  Paradise  against  the  unhappy  man's  return, — 
then,  the  whole  story  is  complete.  It  is  by  those 
same  forces  of  nature  which  are  now  his  hindrances 
that  man  is  finally  to  overcome.  Not  by  a  new  dis- 
pensation, not  by  a  new  world  of  things,  but  by 
these  same  things,  these  very  same  old  things  which 
have  so  long  stood  between  him  and  his  highest,  he 
is  finally  to  reach  his  highest.  The  cherubims  who 
so  long  shut  him  out  from,  are  at  last  to  bring  him 
back  to,  the  tree  of  life. 

This  is  the  story  of  the  world  then,  and  the  story 
of  man  as  the  Bible  tells  it — the  story  of  the  lost 
and  refound  tree  of  life.     There  is  something  broad 


i68  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

and  primal  in  that  universal  figure  of  the  tree.  It 
is  interesting,  I  think,  to  turn  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  see  how,  when  Jesus  Christ  came,  the 
story  which  He  had  to  tell  of  man's  condition  and 
prospects  was  just  the  same  with  this  old  story  of 
the  tree  of  Genesis.  Take  the  parable  of  the 
prodigal  son — how  different  it  is!  how  quiet  and 
domestic  and  familiar!  how  homely  in  its  quaint 
details !  But  if  you  look  at  it,  you  will  see  that  the 
meaning  is  the  same.  There,  too,  there  is  a  first 
native  possibility,  the  place  in  the  father's  house  to 
which  the  boy  was  born.  There,  too,  that  possi- 
bility ceases  to  be  actual  because  of  the  wilfulness 
of  him  to  whom  it  was  offered.  "Give  me  the  por- 
tion of  goods  that  falleth  to  me";  it  is  exactly 
Adam  and  Eve  over  again.  There,  too,  the  possi- 
bility is  not  destroyed,  but  stands  waiting,  out  of 
sight  of  the  wanderer,  but  always  expecting  his  re- 
turn ;  the  father's  house  from  which  the  son  goes 
out,  and  which  stands  with  its  door  open  when  long 
afterwards  he  comes  struggling  back.  There,  too, 
the  instant  that  submission  is  complete, — "I  will 
arise  and  go  to  my  father," — the  lost  possibility  is 
found  again,  for,  "While  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off, 
his  father  saw  him  and  ran  and  fell  on  his  neck  and 
kissed  him."  The  story  of  the  tree  of  life  and  the 
story  of  the  prodigal  son  are  the  same  story.  Drawn 
with  such  different  touch,  colored  in  such  different 
hues,  they  set  before  us  still  the  same  picture  of  the 
life  of  man. 

It  might  be  well  to  look  at  that  picture  as  it  repre- 
sents the  world's  life,  and  as  it  represents  the  life  of 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  169 

the  individual.  I  shall  only  undertake  to  do  the 
latter.  Of  the  other  let  me  merely  remind  you  in  a 
few  words  how  true  a  conception,  how  complete  an 
explanation,  of  the  state  of  things  which  we  see 
everywhere  around  us  is  this  great  Bible  conception 
of  the  hidden  tree  of  Ufe.  It  is  not  lost,  not  totally 
destroyed  forever,  not  taken  out  of  man's  hope — 
that  better  possibility  of  man,  that  full  condition  of 
humanity,  in  which  every  act  has  its  most  perfect 
motive,  and  every  motive  its  most  perfect  act.  It 
is  not  lost,  but  it  is  hidden;  hidden  where  the 
powers  of  the  world  will  not  let  men  get  at  it,  but 
where  men  feel  that  it  exists,  live  otherwise  than 
they  would  live  if  they  knew  that  it  had  perished, 
and  never  give  over  the  hope  of  reaching  it  some 
day  again. 

Could  any  picture  more  completely  describe  this 
mixed  state  of  the  world  we  live  in?  The  alterna- 
tions of  hope  and  despair,  the  way  that  generosity 
and  meanness  by  turns  take  possession  of  the  world, 
the  wars  and  tumults,  the  eagerness  for  progress  and 
the  dreary  clinging  to  old  sins,  the  history  of  the 
world  for  any  one  week,  the  passions  that  agitate 
the  breast  of  any  ruler,  the  motives  and  feelings 
that  contend  in  a  political  convention, — where  is 
there  any  theory  of  man  that  takes  them  all  in  more 
perfectly  than  this  Bible  theory  of  the  tree  of  life ; 
lost  but  not  destroyed,  blooming  somewhere  still 
behind  the  cherubims,  never  quite  forgotten,  and  to 
be  made  visible  again  when  man  shall  have  become 
able,  by  long  education,  to  enter  in  and  take  of  its 
fruit  and  eat? 


170 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 


But  let  us  leave  this  larger  view,  and  turn  to  see 
how,  in  the  life  of  each  of  us,  the  story  of  the  tree 
of  life  finds  its  fulfilment.  Every  man  has  his  tree 
of  life, — the  full  completeness  of  life  for  him,  the  best 
that  those  powers  which  he  has,  that  special  combi- 
nation of  qualities  that  he  is,  is  capable  of  being.  It 
gives  a  dignity  to  every  human  being  to  think  this 
of  each.  It  breaks  the  herd  and  sets  the  individual 
before  you.  Walk  down  the  crowded  street  some 
day,  and  think  of  it.  They  all  look  so  alike,  these 
men  and  women,  such  hosts  of  them,  with  the  same 
narrow,  vulgar,  greedy  faces !  They  sweep  by  you 
as  little  distinguished  as  the  drops  in  the  stream  that 
goes  hurrying  and  whirling  past  your  feet. 

But  think  of  them  again.  Every  man  and  woman 
of  them  has  a  tree  of  life — a  separate  completeness 
of  character,  a  possibility  which,  if  he  could  fulfil  it, 
would  stand  a  distinct  and  perfect  thing  in  the  uni- 
verse, the  repetition  of  no  other  that  ever  went  be- 
fore, and  never  to  be  repeated  by  any  that  shall 
come  after.  Take  out  the  meanest  and  most  sordid 
face  that  passes  you,  the  face  most  brutalized  by 
vice,  most  pinched  and  strained  by  business ; — that 
man  has  his  tree  of  life,  his  own  separate  possibility 
of  being,  luxuriant  and  vital,  fresh,  free,  original, 
"How  terribly  he  has  missed  of  it,"  you  say.  In- 
deed he  has.  A  poor,  undistinguishable  thing  he  is, 
as  wretched  as  poor  Adam  when  he  had  been  driven 
from  his  tree  of  life,  and  stood  naked  and  shivering 
outside  the  Garden,  with  the  beasts  that  used  to  be 
his  subjects  snarling  at  him,  and  the  ground  begin- 
ning to  mock  him  with  its  thorns  and  thistles.     That 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  171 

poor  man  evidently  has  been  cast  out  of  his  garden, 
and  has  lost  his  tree  of  life.  And  is  it  not  evident 
enough  how  he  lost  it?  Must  it  not  have  been  that 
he  was  wilful?  Must  it  not  have  been  that,  at  the 
very  beginning,  he  had  no  idea  but  for  himself,  no 
notion  of  living  in  obedience  to  God?  Do  not  say 
that  that  is  a  false  and  artificial  explanation,  a  mere 
ministers'  sermon  explanation  of  how  this  insignifi- 
cant creature  on  the  street  lost  all  his  chance  of  a 
strong,  vital  life.  Tell  me,  nay,  ask  yourself,  if  he 
had  realized  God,  if  he  had  known  and  been  glad  to 
know  from  the  beginning  that  his  life  belonged  to 
God,  if  he  had  really  tried  to  serve  God,  could  he 
have  come  to  this?  If  consecration  could  have  saved 
him,  is  it  not  the  absence  of  consecration  that  has 
ruined  him? 

And  he  is  only  a  single  emphasized  and  recogniz- 
able example.  All  the  failures  of  men  are  of  the 
same  sort.  What  makes  the  scholar's  life  a  failure? 
What  makes  him  sigh  when  at  last  the  books  grow 
dim  before  his  eyes,  and  the  treacherous  memory 
begins  to  break  and  lose  the  treasures  it  has  held? 
He  has  been  studying  for  himself,  wilfully,  not 
humbly,  taking  the  fruit  from  the  tree  of  knowledge. 
What  makes  the  workman  turn  into  a  machine? 
What  makes  us  feel  so  often,  the  more  his  special 
skill  develops,  that  he  is  growing  less  and  not  more 
a  man?  What  shuts  the  merchant  up  to  his  drudg- 
ery, making  it  absolutely  ridiculous  and  blasphemous 
to  say  of  him,  as  we  watch  the  way  he  lives  and  the 
things  he  does  from  the  time  he  rises  till  the  time 
he  goes  to  bed,  "That  is  what  God  made  that  man 


172  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

for  "?  What  makes  every  one  of  us  sigh  when  we 
think  what  we  might  have  been?  Why  is  every  one 
of  us  missing  his  highest  ?  Why  are  we  all  shul  out 
from  our  trees  of  life?  There  is  one  word,  one  uni- 
versal word,  that  tells  the  sad  story  for  us  all.  It  is 
selfishness — selfishness  from  the  beginning.  If  we 
had  not  been  selfish,  if  we  had  lived  for  God  from 
the  beginning,  if  we  had  been  consecrated,  we  know 
it  would  have  been  different ;  we  should  have  had 
our  Eden  inside  and  not  outside ;  we  should  have 
eaten  in  God's  due  time  of  our  tree  of  life,  and  have 
come  to  what  He  made  us  for, — our  fullest  and  our 
best  life. 

And  then  add  to  this  sense  of  exclusion,  this  con- 
sciousness of  having  missed  our  best,  the  other  sym- 
bol of  the  cherubims.  What  is  it  that  keeps  us  from 
our  tree  of  life  to-day?  What  is  it  that,  when  we 
have  once  lost  it,  keeps  us  shut  out  from  the  dream 
and  pattern  of  our  existence?  Behold,  it  is  those  very 
forces,  those  same  circumstances  which  ought  to  and 
which  might  have  taken  our  hands  and  been  our 
guides,  to  lead  us  to  our  highest  possibilities.  If 
you  are  a  student  who  scoffs  and  is  irreverent,  what 
has  made  you  so?  That  very  study,  that  very 
science,  which  might  have  led  you  to  a  profound  and 
thoughtful  and  tender  awe  of  God.  Or  you  are  a 
working  man  or  a  working  woman,  and  your  work 
has  made  you  bitter  and  discontented,  that  very 
work  which  was  sent  to  make  you  happy  and 
healthy.  Or  you  have  lived  a  life  of  society  and 
you  have  grown  frivolous  and  selfish  by  that  contact 
with  your  fellow-men  which  might  have  made  you 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  173 

earnest  and  self-forgetful.  Or  you  have  been  rich, 
and  your  riches  have  made  you  proud  instead  of 
humble.  These  are  the  powers  which  ought  to 
make  us  good,  and  do  so  often  make  us  bad ;  whose 
mission  is  to  bring  men's  souls  to  God  and  to  their 
own  best  attainment,  but  which  our  obstinacy  so 
often  compels  to  stand  between  us  and  God,  and 
shut  us  out  from  Him.  These  are  the  cherubims 
with  flaming  swords  that  keep  us  from  our  tree  of  life. 

I  cannot  set  before  you  as  I  wish  I  could  that  uni- 
versal tragedy  of  human  existence, — the  conscious- 
ness of  every  man  living  that  he  has  not  found  his 
best.  I  can  only  rely  on  what  I  know  is  in  the 
heart  of  every  one  of  you  giving  confirmation  to 
my  words.  The  lost  tree  of  life!  we  were  driven 
out  from  it  before  we  tasted  it,  and  we  have  lived  in 
exile  from  it  all  our  days,  the  most  successful  and 
the  most  unfortunate  of  us  alike.  How  little  is  the 
difference  of  our  success  or  our  misfortune,  after  all ! 
we  have  all  together  failed  of  the  best  that  we  were 
made  for,  failed  of  the  fulness  of  our  life. 

So  true  is  the  beginning  of  the  Bible  to  our  con- 
tinual life!  so  in  our  own  experience  we  find  the 
everlasting  warrant  of  that  much-disputed  tale  of 
Genesis !  But,  thank  God !  the  end  of  the  Bible  is 
just  as  true.  As  true  as  this  universal  fact  of  all 
men's  failure  is  the  other  fact,  that  no  man's  failure 
is  final  or  necessarily  fatal;  that  every  man's  lost 
tree  of  life  is  kept  by  God,  and  that  he  may  find  it 
again  in  God's  Paradise  if  he  comes  there  in  humble 
consecration. 

Let  us  put  figures  and  allegories  aside  for  a  mo- 


174  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

ment.  The  truth  of  Christianity  is  this:  that  how- 
ever a  man  has  failed  by  his  selfishness  of  the  fulness 
of  life  for  which  God  made  him,  the  moment  that, 
led  by  the  love  of  Christ,  he  casts  his  selfishness 
aside  and  consecrates  himself  to  God,  that  lost  pos- 
sibility reappears ;  he  begins  to  realize  and  attempt 
again  in  hope  the  highest  idea  of  his  life ;  the  faded 
colors  brighten  ;  the  crowding  walls  open  and  disap- 
pear. This  is  the  deepest,  noblest  Christian  con- 
sciousness. Very  far  off,  very  dimly  seen  as  yet, 
hoped-for  not  by  any  struggle  of  its  own  but  by  the 
gift  of  the  Mercy  and  Power  to  which  it  is  now 
given,  the  soul  that  is  in  God  believes  in  its  own 
perfectibility,  and  dares  to  set  itself  perfection  as  the 
mark  of  life,  short  of  which  it  cannot  rest  satisfied. 

And  when  this  change  has  come,  when  a  soul  has 
dared  again  to  realize  and  desire  the  life  for  which 
God  made  it,  then  also  comes  the  other  change. 
The  hindrances  change  back  again  to  their  true  pur- 
pose and  are  once  more  the  helpers.  That,  too,  is 
a  most  noble  part  of  the  Christian's  experience,  and 
one  which  every  Christian  recognizes.  You  prayed 
to  God  when  you  became  His  servant  that  He 
would  take  your  enemies  away,  that  He  would 
free  you  from  those  circumstances  which  had  hin- 
dered you  from  living  a  good  life.  But  He  did 
something  better  than  what  you  prayed  for.  As 
you  looked  at  your  old  enemies  they  did  not  disap- 
pear, but  their  old  faces  altered.  You  saw  them 
still,  but  you  saw  them  now  changed  into  His  ser- 
vants. The  business  that  had  made  you  worldly 
stretched  out  new  hands,  all  heavy  with  the  gifts  of 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  175 

charity.  The  nature  which  had  stood  Hke  a  wall 
between  you  and  the  truth  of  a  Personal  Creator, 
opened  now  a  hundred  voices  all  declaring  Him, 
The  men  who  had  tempted  you  to  pride  and  passion, 
all  came  with  their  opportunities  of  humility  and 
patience.  Everything  was  altered  when  you  were 
altered.  The  cherubims  had  left  their  hostile  guard 
above  the  gate,  and  now  stood  inviting  you  to  let 
them  lead  you  to  the  tree  of  life.  This  is  the  Fall 
supplanted  by  the  Redemption.  This  completes 
the  whole  Bible  of  a  human  life. 

This,  then,  is  the  truth  of  the  tree  of  life,  its  loss 
and  its  recovery.  We  turn  to  the  only  human  life 
in  which  it  was  never  lost,  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ. 
We  own  in  Him  the  perfection  of  humanity — every 
human  power  at  its  best  used  for  its  best.  With 
Him  there  was  none  of  this  brooding  dissatisfaction 
that  there  is  with  us.  Many  a  time  His  hard  and 
heavy  work  weighed  on  Him,  and  once  He  cried  to 
be  released ;  but  never  is  there  any  word  of  bitter 
regret  as  He  looks  back,  never  in  all  the  Gospel  one 
self-reproach  that  He  had  fallen  short  of  complete- 
ness either  in  character  or  work.  Oh,  below  all  the 
pain,  what  a  satisfaction  there  must  have  been  in 
that  tried  and  tortured  heart !  Who  would  not  feel 
that  any  pain  were  easy  if  one  could  be  as  free  as 
Jesus  Christ  was  from  self-reproach,  if  one  could 
say  as  He  said,  "I  have  finished  the  work  that  thou 
gavest  me  to  do,"  and  at  last,  with  one  more  "It  is 
finished,"  lay  a  life  that  had  completely  succeeded 
back  into  the  Father's  hand? 


176  THE  TREE  OF  LIFE 

Yes,  Christ  always  lived  to  His  fullest,  and  as  we 
read  His  story  we  know  why.  The  secret  is  not 
hard  to  find.  It  is  in  that  one  clear  power  of  con- 
secration that  runs  through  all  His  life.  It  is  be- 
cause He  is  living  to  God  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  that  He  lives  so  completely.  And  where  His 
obedience  is  most  manifest,  the  completeness  of  His 
life  is  most  manifest,  too.  We  see  that  in  the  Cross. 
He  was  never  so  alive  as  when  He  was  dying  there. 
There,  where  He  reached  the  consummate  obedience, 
He  reached  the  consummation  of  life,  too.  The 
Being  most  alive,  the  Being  whose  life  is  running 
out  into  most  vast  and  stupendous  consequences, 
is  He  who  hangs  expiring  there.  The  Cross  is  His 
Tree  of  Life. 

And  so  with  us,  my  friends.  If  we  do  really  give 
ourselves  to  God,  whatever  cross  that  consecration 
brings  us  to  will  be  our  tree  of  life.  It  may  seem 
as  if,  in  making  ourselves  His,  we  strip  our  lives 
of  their  richness;  we  give  up  friends,  we  give  up 
amusements,  we  give  up  easy  days,  we  give  up  our 
own  will  to  be  the  Lord's.  It  looks  like  death.  It 
looks  like  emptying  the  precious  wine  of  life  away, 
and  breaking  the  precious  vase  that  held  it.  But 
as  you  go  on  in  your  sacrifice,  behold !  the  memory 
of  Eden  is  revived,  and  the  prophecy  of  Paradise  is 
fulfilled.  The  cross  on  which  you  stretch  yourself 
sends  its  strength  and  abundance  into  you  ;  and  it  is 
not  dying,  but  living.  No  matter  what  men  call  it, 
you  know  that  it  is  living.  Your  cross  is  your  tree 
of  life. 

And  yet  again,  the  Cross  of  Christ  may  be  not 


THE  TREE  OF  LIFE  177 

merely  His  Tree  of  Life,  but  ours.  If  it  imparts  its 
power  to  us;  if,  loving  Him  because  He  died  upon 
it,  we  grow  eager  to  give  ourselves  to  Him  and  to 
our  brethren ;  then  that  old  wood  on  which  they 
crucified  Him  becomes  the  source  and  fountain  of 
our  life.  It  is  not  merely  that  He  never  was  more 
alive  than  when  He  hung  there,  but  our  life  also  is 
revived  when  we  come  nearest  to  it.  The  power  of 
our  self-sacrifices  is  in  that  self-sacrifice  of  His. 
Our  crosses  are  cut  out  of  that  one  inexhaustible 
Cross  of  Calvary. 

Behold,  then,  for  every  man  there  are  not  two, 
there  are  three  trees  of  life — the  tree  in  Eden,  the 
tree  on  Calvary,  and  the  tree  in  the  Paradise  of  God. 
For  every  man  there  is  God's  first  design,  and  there 
is  God's  final  salvation;  but  between  the  two  there 
is  Christ's  Redemption.  We  lose  our  life ;  we  find 
it  in  our  Saviour;  we  keep  it  unto  Life  eternal. 

Where  do  we  all  stand?  Behind  us  is  the  loss; 
we  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God. 
Have  we  recovered  our  life  at  the  Cross?  If  we 
have,  then,  by  obedience  springing  out  of  gratitude, 
the  way  is  open  for  us  into  the  eternal  life  of  God. 
"Blessed  are  they  that  do  his  commandments," 
that  they  may  have  a  right  to  the  Tree  of  Life,  and 
enter  in  through  the  gates  into  the  city. 


XI. 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF- 
FORGETFULNESS. 

•'  He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life 
for  my  sake  shall  find  it." — Matthew  x.  39. 

There  are  some  words  of  Jesus  Christ  that  seem 
to  mean  one  special  thing;  and  when  we  have  found 
that  meaning  in  them  we  seem  to  have  grasped  them 
entirely.  There  are  others  which  are  so  large  that 
we  are  sure  they  must  mean  many  things ;  and  any 
one  meaning  of  them  that  we  find  is  only  one  of 
many,  one  of  the  multitude  of  points  at  which  such 
great  words  must  touch  human  life.  I  think  this 
word  of  Christ  must  mean  much  beside  the  truth 
that  I  shall  try  to  draw  out  from  it.  I  am  sure  it 
does.  To  "find  one's  life,"  To  "lose  one's  life," — 
"life"  has  so  many  stages  or  layers  of  meaning,  as  it 
were,  that  those  expressions  may  well  refer  to  many 
different  experiences  corresponding  to  the  kind  or 
depth  of  the  life  which  is  described  as  being  found  or 
lost.  On  its  very  surface  it  reveals  itself  as  a  law  of 
physical  health,  and  it  has  in  it  the  soundest  prin- 
ciple for  the  treatment  of  the  life  of  the  body.  In 
its  profoundest  sense,  it  is  the  standard  of  the  ever- 
lasting judgment  of  souls.     They  are  words  that  may 

178 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  179 

stand  written  at  the  head  of  every  page  in  the  awful 
book  which  is  to  be  opened  for  the  settlement  of 
the  eternal  destiny  of  every  one  of  us,  as  we  gather 
before  the  throne  of  Christ  the  Judge.  You  will 
understand,  then,  that  I  do  not  try  to  exhaust  the 
meaning  of  a  text  so  inexhaustible.  I  only  want  to 
tell  you  of  one  meaning  of  it  which,  I  am  sure,  if  we 
can  take  it  in,  will  not  fail  to  commend  itself  to  our 
own  experiences  and  needs. 

"He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it."  The  words 
might  suggest  several  figures,  but  perhaps  all  this 
talk  about  finding  and  losing  most  naturally  suggests 
the  thought  of  that  whose  finding  and  whose  loss  is, 
in  our  mercenary  world,  the  subject  of  our  most  con- 
tinual anxiety.  It  make  us  think  of  money.  Life 
is  treated  like  money.  And  certain  things  are  true 
of  money,  which  all  who  have  anything  to  do  with 
it  understand.  Its  value  is  not  in  itself.  It  gets  its 
value  from  the  things  it  can  accomplish.  What  it 
will  buy  is  what  makes  it  so  precious.  The  moment 
you  separate  money  from  the  power  of  purchase 
that  belongs  to  it,  that  moment  all  its  worth  is  gone. 
The  most  entirely  worthless  thing  that  Robinson 
Crusoe  saved  out  of  the  wreck,  and  carried  on  shore, 
was  the  bag  of  gold.  It  could  not  buy  anything, 
could  not  be  traded  away,  and  so  it  was  good  for 
nothing.  And  so  if  any  man  wilfully  separates 
money  from  its  uses,  he  really  destroys  its  value,  no 
matter  how  much  he  may  seem  to  be  setting  a  special 
value  on  it.  The  miser  who  shuts  his  money  up, 
and  will  not  spend  it,  thereby  makes  it  a  worthless 


i8o  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

thing.  There  is  nothing  so  valueless  in  all  his  dingy 
hovel  as  his  chest  of  gold.  The  rags  in  which  he 
clothes  himself,  the  candle-end  that  he  lights  to 
make  the  darkness  visible,  are  worth  more  than  all 
his  heavy  chest  contains.  His  attempt  to  value 
money  for  itself  has  made  his  money  valueless. 

Now,  the  text  suggests  that  just  the  same  things 
are  true  of  human  life.  Life  is  a  means  for  certain 
purposes.  Freely  given  to  secure  those  purposes, 
it  is  inestimable.  The  instinctive  delight  of  men  as 
they  watch  a  life  freely  given  for  a  noble  end — a 
"well-spent  life  "  as  they  love  to  call  it — bears  wit- 
ness how  inestimable  it  is.  But  a  life  withheld  from 
its  purposes  loses  its  value.  It  is  like  the  miser's 
gold,  made  worthless,  and  so  lost,  by  the  very  care 
that  is  taken  not  to  lose  it.  Of  both  money  and 
life,  can  we  not  see  how  it  is  true  that  he  who  saves 
them  loses  them  ?  but  he  who  loses  them  for  a  worthy 
purpose  gets  their  worth — "finds  "  them  in  the  real 
possession  of  their  value. 

There  is  no  difference  between  men  that  is  more 
striking.  One  man  is  always  thinking  about  his  life, 
how  pleasant  and  how  beautiful  it  is.  He  is  always 
trying  to  make  it  more  pleasant.  He  is  always  com- 
paring his  days  with  one  another  to  see  which  was 
the  pleasantest.  He  is  like  the  miser  whose  joy  is 
to  dip  his  arms  into  the  yellow  gold,  and  feel  it 
ripple  over  his  delighted  hands ;  who  delights  in 
counting  over  and  over  the  treasures  the  amount  of 
which  he  knows  by  heart.  Another  man  never  im- 
presses you  as  thinking  much  about  life  in  itself. 
He  never  seems  to  be  pondering  whether  life  is 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  i8i 

pleasant  or  unpleasant, — nay,  scarcely  whether  life 
be  good  or  bad,  so  earnestly,  so  eagerly  his  soul  is 
set  on  something  that  he  has  to  do  in  life,  some- 
thing that  must  be  done  before  death  comes  to  stop 
him.  He  is  like  the  merchant  who  scarcely  looks 
at  the  coin  or  bill  he  gives  away,  so  intent  is  he  on 
what  he  is  to  buy  with  it,  upon  the  new  form  in  which 
it  is  to  come  back  to  him.  The  first  man  cannot 
bear  to  be  distracted  from  the  contemplation  of  him- 
self. He  wants  to  be  saying  to  himself  always,  "I 
am  happy!  How  happy  I  am!"  The  other  man 
does  not  want  to  think  about  himself  at  all ;  he  wants 
to  see  his  work  going  on.  The  first  is  always  finding 
his  life,  and  yet  losing  its  best  result.  The  other  is 
always  losing  his  life,  and  yet  living  with  an  intensity 
that  the  first  never  knows. 

There  are,  then,  these  three  kinds  of  men :  the 
spendthrifts  of  life,  or  those  who  value  neither  life 
nor  its  purposes;  the  misers  of  life,  or  those  who 
value  life  for  itself,  apart  from  all  its  purposes,  and 
so  lose  the  real  value  out  of  life  itself;  and  the  mer- 
chants of  life,  who  value  life  for  what  it  will  do,  and 
so  get  the  best  out  of  life  without  ever  seeking  it. 

Perhaps  we  can  understand  it  better  if  we  change 
our  figure.  Think  of  life  as  a  voyage.  The  truest 
liver  of  the  truest  life  is  like  a  voyager  who,  as  he 
sails,  is  not  indifferent  to  all  the  beauty  of  the  sea 
around  him.  The  morning  and  the  evening  sun, 
the  moonlight  and  the  starlight,  the  endless  change 
of  the  vast  water  that  he  floats  on,  the  passing  back 
and  forth  of  other  ships  between  him  and  the  sky, 
the  incidents  and  company  on  his  own  vessel, — all 


i82  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

these  are  pleasant  to  him ;  but  their  pleasure  is 
borne  up  by  and  woven  in  with  his  interest  in  the 
purpose  for  which  he  undertook  the  voyage.  That 
lies  beyond  and  that  lies  under  the  voyage  all  the 
while.  He  is  not  sailing  just  for  the  sake  of  sailing. 
He  never  would  have  undertaken  the  voyage  for  its 
own  sake.  Another  man,  who  has  no  purpose  be- 
yond the  voyage,  is  vexed  and  uneasy.  He  is  so 
afraid  of  not  getting  the  best  out  of  it  that  he  loses 
its  best.  The  spots  and  imperfections  in  its  pleasure 
worry  him.  Those  are  the  differences  of  the  ways 
in  which  men  live.  One  man  forgets  his  own  life  in 
the  purposes  for  which  his  life  is  lived,  and  he  is  the 
man  whose  life  grows  richest  and  brightest.  An- 
other man  is  always  thinking  about  himself,  and  so 
never  gets  beyond  himself  into  those  purposes  of 
living  out  of  which  all  the  fulness  of  personal  life 
may  flow  back  to  him. 

It  is  just  as  true  in  separate  regions  of  life  as  in 
the  whole.  In  every  occupation  it  is  true.  A  clerk 
in  a  store  does  his  work  well  and  benefits  himself 
the  most  when  he  thinks  about  his  work,  and  not 
about  himself.  If  he  is  always  asking  questions 
about  himself:  "Am  I  as  happy  as  I  ought  to  be? 
Am  I  appreciated?  Am  I  getting  on  as  fast  as  I  de- 
serve? " — if  he  does  that  you  know  how  continually 
his  work  is  hampered.  If  his  work  interests  him 
thoroughly,  and  he  throws  himself  into  it  with  his 
whole  soul,  simply  anxious  to  see  it  done  as  well  as 
he  can  do  it ;  then  the  work  grows,  and  he  grows, 
and  both  to  their  best. 

So  it  is  also  with  the  scholar  at  his  books.     If  he 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  183 

asks  whether  he  is  growing  learned,  he  never  really 
gets  the  soul  of  the  learning  that  he  seeks.  If  he  can 
forget  himself  and  study  for  the  pure  love  of  truth, 
or  to  bring  up  some  pearl  of  usefulness  out  of  the 
deep  sea  of  knowledge,  then  his  learning  ripens  and 
mellows  day  by  day.  This  is  the  real  difference  be- 
tween the  mere  pedant  and  dilettante  and  the  true 
scholar  always. 

But  perhaps  we  see  it  clearest  of  all  when  we  think 
of  man  merely  as  a  physical  creature,  man  in  his 
bodily  conditions.  Certainly  the  best  use  of  the 
body  is  not  got  by  the  most  anxious  care  of  the 
body.  There  is  a  miserliness  of  health  which  is 
mere  invalidism.  There  are  people  so  careful  of 
their  physical  force,  so  afraid  of  exposing  it  or  wast- 
ing it,  so  afraid  of  catching  cold  or  getting  tired,  that 
they  never  in  all  their  lives  use  their  physical  force 
for  one  brave  outburst  of  action.  If  you  could 
make  such  people  just  forget  their  health  entirely, 
and  eagerly  plunge  into  some  of  the  multitudinous 
work  that  is  waiting  to  be  done,  you  are  sure,  not 
merely  that  more  work  would  be  accomplished,  but 
that  their  health  would  be  stronger  than  it  is  now. 

Everywhere,  then,  self-forgetfulness  is  necessary 
for  a  man  to  get  the  best  advantage  of  himself.  If 
we  require  a  name  for  that  continual  remembrance 
of  one's  self  which  is  a  hindrance  to  every  effort, 
we  must  take  that  word  which  people  are  rather 
fond  of  using  nowadays  —  self-consciousness.  It  is 
almost  one  of  the  cant  words  of  our  time  among 
certain  classes  of  people.  Many  people  talk  about  it 
who  have  very  little  idea  of  what  self-consciousness 


i84  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

really  is;  but,  if  it  is  really  what  I  have  been  try- 
ing to  describe,  if  it  be  such  a  thinking  about 
one's  self,  in  living  one's  life  or  doing  one's  work, 
that  the  life  is  not  lived  nor  the  work  done  at  its 
best, — if  this  is  self-consciousness,  then  it  certainly 
is  not  a  mere  fancy,  it  is  a  real  thing,  really  hamper- 
ing and  injuring  very  many  people,  and  really  need- 
ing to  be  got  rid  of  if  it  possibly  can  be.  It  is  not 
to  be  spoken  of  with  contempt,  but  seriously. 

We  sometimes  fancy  that  the  hindrance  of  self- 
consciousness  must  be  most  common  in  times  like 
ours,  times  of  elaborate  civilization  and  of  a  great 
deal  that  encourages  subjective  life  and  the  ponder- 
ing over  one's  self.  We  fancy  some  ruder  age  and 
country,  where  the  life  should  be  all  fresh  and  ex- 
ternal, where  the  new-born  sons  of  the  soil  should 
live  their  bright,  objective  life,  too  busy  in  doing  the 
tasks  that  an  unploughed  and  unplanted  earth  held 
out  to  them  to  stop  to  think  about  themselves,  and 
so  getting  the  best  out  of  life  unconsciously.  There 
is  certainly  some  truth  in  such  a  fancy.  The  disease 
of  self-consciousness  does  especially  haunt  the  places 
and  periods  of  elaborate  culture,  where  there  is  more 
of  necessary  idleness,  and  where  the  work  that  is 
done  is  less  immediately  and  manifestly  connected 
with  its  results  than  in  more  primitive  circumstances ; 
but  still  it  is  so  human  that  it  must  have  prevailed 
wherever  men  have  lived  to  suffer  from  it.  Every- 
where some  souls  must  have  been  hindered  and 
made  unhappy  by  it. 

When  we  look  at  self-consciousness,  it  is  evident 
that  it  has  certain  traceable  stages  or  degrees.     It 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  185 

busies  itself  with  the  question  of  happiness,  or  the 
question  of  reputation,  or  the  question  of  goodness. 
One  man  is  hindered  in  doing  the  work  that  the 
Lord  has  given  him  by  continually  asking  himself, 
"Am  I  getting  the  happiness  that  I  ought  to  have 
out  of  the  doing  of  my  work?  "  Another  is  impeded 
by  always  asking,  "Am  I  doing  myself  credit  in  this 
work  of  mine?  "  And  yet  another  is  always  inquir- 
ing for  the  evidence  of  growing  goodness  and  holi- 
ness, with  a  minuteness  of  self-inspection  that 
prevents  the  very  fruits  from  growing  which  he  is 
always  trying  to  discover.  This  last  is  a  far  nobler 
self-consciousness  than  the  others.  It  cannot  grow 
so  morbid  that  there  shall  not  be  something  noble 
in  it.  It  always  will  be  sublime  to  see  any  man,  in 
however  strange  and  fruitless  fashion,  anxious  over 
his  own  inner  life,  and  eager  to  know  whether  the 
activities  in  which  he  is  engaged  are  making  him 
better.  That  will  always  be  sublime,  and  never  will 
be  very  common.  But  sublime  and  rare  as  it  may 
be,  still  it  is  evident  enough  that  it  very  soon  reaches 
a  degree  in  which  it  is  not  good.  Sure  it  is  that 
those  deeds  which  have  been  done  in  this  world,  the 
deeds  which  most  blessed  at  once  the  world  and  the 
doer,  have  been  those  that  were  done  under  such  a 
supreme  compulsion  of  the  deeds  themselves  as  left 
no  room  for  any  self-questioning  of  the  men  who 
did  them.  David,  St.  Paul,  Luther,  they  did  not 
ask  whether  what  they  were  going  to  do  would  help 
them,  even  in  their  best  and  highest  natures.  It  was 
the  righteousness  of  the  thing  itself,  the  fascination 
and  compulsion  of  its  righteousness,  that  made  them 


i86  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

do  it ;  and  then  the  blessing  fell  on  them  almost  as 
much  to  their  surprise  as  to  that  of  others. 

And  does  not  your  own  experience  miniature  and 
confirm  David's  and  St.  Paul's?  Must  not  you,  too, 
say,  "The  things  that  have  made  me  better  have 
not  been  the  things  that  I  did  by  any  set  purpose 
of  self-culture,  but  the  things  which  attracted  me  and 
commanded  me?  I  have  always  found  the  richest 
gold,  not  when  I  was  hunting  for  it,  but  when  I  was 
ploughing  the  field  for  the  harvest  it  was  made  to 
bear." 

We  can  have  no  idea  how  much  the  real  effective- 
ness of  our  life  is  hindered  by  our  self-consciousness, 
by  our  considering,  that  is,  the  effect  of  our  acts 
upon  ourselves,  as  well  as  their  accomplishment  of 
their  own  purposes.  If  we  could  get  rid  of  self- 
consciousness,  we  could  do  our  work  so  much  more 
easily.  With  one  thing,  and  only  one,  to  think  of 
— "How  can  I  do  this  task  as  well  as  it  is  possible 
for  me  to  do  it?" — not  asking  anything  about  our 
being  happy  in  doing  it,  or  about  what  people  will 
think  of  the  way  we  do  it,  or  even  about  whether  we 
shall  be  made  better  by  doing  it, —  with  such  sim- 
plicity everywhere,  how  easy  all  our  work  would  be ! 
And  then  again,  how  much  more  work  we  should  do  I 
How  often  our  hand  is  held  back  from  something 
that  evidently  ought  to  be  done, — the  first  healthy 
impulse  to  go  and  do  it  being  restrained  and  checked 
by  some  question  that  rises  about  our  happiness,  or 
credit,  or  culture.  All  the  men  who  have  done 
enormous  amounts  of  work  have  been  characterized 
by  this,  —that  they  forgot  themselves  in  their  work. 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  187 

And  yet  again,  how  much  more  telling  our  work 
would  be  upon  other  people!  There  is  nothing 
that  so  destroys  the  influence  of  any  act  or  speech 
as  to  feel  that  the  actor  or  speaker  is  thinking  about 
himself.  There  is  nothing  that  puts  such  force  into 
each,  as  to  know  that  the  actor  or  speaker  has  for- 
gotten himself  in  what  he  is  doing  and  saying.  It 
seems  so  simple,  and  it  is  so  hard.  God  comes  and 
puts  a  tool  into  our  hand  and  says,  "Go,  do  that 
work;  go,  dig  that  ditch,  or  build  that  wall"; 
and  we  cannot  go  frankly  and  do  it,  and  let  our 
happiness,  our  credit,  and  our  character  take  care 
of  themselves,  or,  rather,  be  taken  care  of  by 
Him  who  knew  what  He  was  about  when  He 
gave  us  the  work.  But  how  truly  it  is  the  no- 
blest way,  is  seen  by  the  admiration  with  which 
men  look  upon  one  who  really  accomplishes  it, 
upon  a  brave  man  full  of  love  for  his  work  and  free 
from  self-consciousness — a  servant  of  God  forgetful 
of  himself. 

The  life  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  pattern  of  this  lofty 
self-forgetfulness.  Yet  even  in  that  pattern  hu- 
manity, it  seems  to  me,  we  can  sometimes  see  the 
first  slight  movement  of  those  dispositions  which, 
in  almost  all  of  us,  grow  into  morbid  self-conscious- 
ness. When  He  talks  about  the  foxes  having  holes 
and  the  birds  of  the  air  having  nests,  while  He 
has  nowhere  to  lay  His  head.  He  is  certainly  aware 
that  what  He  is  doing  is  cutting  Him  off  from  the 
ordinary  comforts  and  happinesses  of  mankind. 
When  He  asks  His  disciples  what  the  world  says 
about  Him,  and  then  what  they,  His  most  confiden- 


i88  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

tial  friends,  believe  about  Him,  there  is  an  evident 
yearning  of  the  human  spirit  for  that  appreciation 
which  it  always  covets  for  its  highest  works.  And 
when,  in  those  unalterably  sweet  and  sacred  words 
at  the  last  supper.  He  tells  His  Father  that  He  has 
finished  the  work  that  had  been  given  Him,  and, 
like  a  tired  child  begging  to  be  taken  home,  prays 
that  He  may  be  "glorified  "  back  again  into  the 
glory  which  He  had  "before  the  world  was,"  surely 
His  mind  was  on  that  development  of  His  own 
marvellous  nature  which  had  been  going  on  along 
with  His  work,  and  which  He  now  felt  just  on  the 
brink  of  its  completion.  All  this  there  certainly 
was  in  His  life.  And  these  are  just  the  elements 
that,  in  our  lives,  grow  into  hindering  self-conscious- 
ness. But  who  that  reads  Jesus  Christ's  story  thinks 
for  a  single  moment  that  He  lived  in  order  to  be 
happy,  or  in  order  to  be  appreciated,  or  even  in 
order  that  His  own  nature  might  ripen  to  its  fullest? 
No!  that  work  of  His — that  work  which  He  loved 
so,  and  before  which  He  seemed  to  stand  sometimes 
so  touchingly  in  awe,  that  work  which  He  began  to 
do  even  in  His  babyhood,  which  haunted  his  boy- 
hood, which  filled  every  moment  of  His  working 
years,  to  finish  which  He  died  at  last, — that  was  the 
thing  He  lived  for.  That  was  His  meat  and  drink. 
In  His  doing  of  that  everything  else  came  to  Him; 
— happiness  such  as  our  hearts  have  never  dreamed 
of;  appreciation  which  has  bent  all  the  world's 
knees  at  His  name;  and  growth  which  it  bewilders 
us  to  think  about.  He  sought  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  His  righteousness,  and  so  all  other  things  were 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  189 

added  to  Him.  So  it  shall  be  to  us  if  we  can  really 
forget  ourselves,  and  live  and  die  as  He  did  in  doing 
the  work  of  God. 

I  have  said  enough  to  show  you  where,  I  think, 
lies  the  true  secret  of  escape  from  the  power  of  self- 
consciousness  that  cripples  and  enfeebles  us.  Evi- 
dently we  must  have  some  great  purpose  in  life, 
strong  enough  to  command  us  out  of  ourselves. 
We  must  have  some  great  work  to  do,  so  imperative 
and  important  that  we  shall  not  have  time  to  think 
of  ourselves  in  doing  it.  We  see  this  wherever  any 
great  work  does  claim  a  man.  The  citizen  who  is 
wondering  whether  he  is  happy  enough,  whether  he 
is  appreciated  enough,  whether  he  is  getting  culture 
enough,  suddenly  hears  the  blast  of  the  trumpet 
that  tells  him  his  country  is  in  danger,  and  leaps  to 
his  feet  and  rushes  to  the  field,  and  forgets  them  all 
in  the  devoted  doing  of  a  soldier's  duty  ;  and  happi- 
ness, credit,  culture,  come  to  him  there  as  they 
would  not  come  while  he  sat  at  home  and  called 
them.  He  gave  up  seeking  them  and  they  flew  to 
him.  He  lost  his  life,  and  then  he  found  it.  The 
multitude  followed  Jesus  from  Bethsaida,  and  left 
their  dinners  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake ;  and  by 
and  by  they  were  sitting  on  the  grass  by  fifties,  eat- 
ing to  the  fill  of  bread  and  fish  which  His  hands  had 
blessed  and  multiplied. 

I  know  the  answer  that  will  come  at  once :  "There 
is  precisely  my  trouble.  If  some  great  task  would 
call  me,  I  could  leave  myself  and  follow  it.  I  do 
not  think  it  strange  that  Jesus  Christ,  with  a  world 
to  save,   could   forget   Himself.     But   I,  with  this 


ipo  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

small  life;  I,  with  these  petty  cares, — what  can  I  do 
to  shake  myself  free  from  myself?  what  is  there  left 
for  me  but  self-consciousness?  The  ship  that  has 
its  freight  to  carry  to  the  Indies  may  well  hurry  on 
its  way,  and  think  only  of  the  harbor  it  is  bound  to ; 
but  the  little  boat  tied  to  the  wharf,  and  only  rising 
and  falling  with  the  sluggish  tide,  what  can  it  do 
but  keep  account  of  the  decay  of  its  slowly  rotting 
planks,  and  listen  to  its  own  sides  rubbing  and 
wearing  against  the  piers?  " 

This  is  all  natural.  But  the  man  who  says  it  has 
lost  the  whole  spirit  of  his  Christianity.  He  is  not 
talking  like  a  Christian.  The  Christian  is  the  man 
redeemed  by  Jesus  Christ.  Jesus  Christ  died  for 
him,  that  he  might  have  eternal  life.  My  dear 
friends,  that  means  something  so  much  deeper  than 
you  think.  Jesus  Christ  died  for  you,  to  show  you 
that  you  were  a  child  of  God,  and  that  God  loved 
you.  He  claimed  you  by  His  death  out  of  all  low 
slaveries  into  His  service.  He  showed  you  that  you 
were  capable  of  serving  Him,  and  that  He  wanted 
you.  If  you  can  mount  up  to  that  idea,  and  believe 
that  God  wants  you  to  do  something  for  Him,  will 
not  that  be  your  salvation  from  self-consciousness? 
Will  you  not  easily  forget  yourself,  as  you  stand  in 
His  ranks,  waiting  and  listening  to  hear  what  He 
wants  you  to  do?  Will  not  that  set  you  free?  Oh, 
how  St.  Paul  felt  this!  "You  are  not  your  own," 
he  said;  "not  your  own  masters,  nor  your  own 
slaves.  You  are  not  your  own,  you  are  bought  with 
a  price!"  And  again,  "He  died  for  all,  that  they 
which  live  should  not  henceforth  live  unto  them- 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  191 

selves,  but  unto  Him  who  died  for  them  and  rose 
again."     That  is  the  Salvation. 

And  when,  to  a  soul  thus  waiting,  God  comes  and 
gives  just  the  familiar  homely  duties  that  belong  to 
all  of  us — the  house  to  keep,  the  bread  to  earn,  the 
school  to  teach — is  it  not  enough?  When  will  we 
Christians  learn  that  not  new  and  strange  tasks,  but 
new  and  strange  solemnity  and  holiness  in  our  old 
tasks,  is  what  we  are  to  expect  by  our  conversion ! 
I  do  not  see  how  any  servant  in  the  King's  House 
can  think  his  labor  menial  or  poor,  since  he  ministers 
in  some  way  to  that  life  by  which  the  kingdom  lives. 
And  there  is  no  task  of  God's  giving  that  is  too 
slight  and  low  for  a  man  to  fling  his  whole  soul  into 
it,  and  by  it  escape  the  dangers  of  self-consciousness, 
if  only  he  really  believes  that  the  task  was  really 
given  him  by  God. 

The  great  transcendent  truth  of  man's  redemp- 
tion, and  the  petty  duties  of  our  daily  life,  stand  in 
a  very  true  and  beautiful  relationship  to  one  another. 
They  belong  together.  The  truth  of  redemption 
would  grow  too  vague  and  shadowy,  if  it  were  not 
fastened  to  familiar  duties.  The  duties  would  grow 
mean  and  sordid,  if  they  might  not  be  glorified  by 
being  done  in  thankfulness  for  the  redemption.  Our 
daily  duties  are  like  the  nails  that  hold  the  golden 
plates  upon  the  walls  of  the  temple.  The  golden 
plates  would  fall  but  for  the  nails  that  hold  them ; 
and  the  nails  would  only  worry  and  break  and  blot 
the  wall  if  it  were  not  for  the  golden  plates  they 
hold. 

And  so,  as  the  cure  of  all  morbid  self-conscious- 


192  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

ness,  I  preach  to  you  the  power  of  faithful  and  de- 
voted work :  Do  your  duty  and  forget  yourself. 
But  I  do  not  preach  the  dreary  gospel  of  mere  Busy- 
ness. Not  simply  by  being  busy  do  men  escape 
from  their  own  haunting  selves;  but  by  being  God's 
servants  men  cease  to  be  their  own  slaves.  By  a 
deep  experience  of  sin  and  pardon  you  must  learn 
how  Christ  bought  you  with  His  blood;  and  then, 
overrunning  with  gratitude  and  longing  to  do  any- 
thing for  Him,  nothing  that  you  can  do  for  Him 
will  seem  small.  Any  duty  will  be  strong  enough  to 
break  your  chains  and  set  you  free. 

It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be  so  taken  up  with 
serving  God,  whether  in  great  or  little  tasks,  that  he 
never  stops  to  ask  for  his  own  happiness  or  credit  or 
culture ;  but  as  he  goes  on  he  is  happy,  though  he 
never  thinks  of  it ;  and  men  give  him  thanks  which 
are  more  sweet  than  praises ;  and  Christ  is  slowly 
formed  within  him  day  by  day.  So,  as  he  forgets 
himself,  his  true  self  prospers.  So,  as  he  loses  his 
life,  he  finds  it  where  it  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 

With  such  a  life  possible,  is  it  not  strange  that  we 
can  live  the  lives  we  do? 


XII. 

THE   NEW   BIRTH. 

'*  Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God." — John  iii.  3, 

It  is  impossible,  I  think,  for  any  one  to  read  or 
hear  these  words  of  Jesus  Christ  without  remember- 
ing what  solemn  words  they  have  been  to  multitudes 
of  our  fellow-men.  There  are  hardly  any  words 
which  Christ  ever  spoke  which  have  more  fascinated 
and  held  the  hearts  of  earnest  men.  They  have 
seemed  to  describe  so  truly  a  great  mysterious 
necessity  to  which  the  heart  itself,  conscious  of  its 
own  needs,  has  given  its  assent,  without  half  know- 
ing what  it  was  that  was  required.  "Ye  must  be 
born  again."  "Yes,  I  know  I  must  be  born  again. 
My  life  must  make  a  fresh  start,  on  a  new  plan  " ; 
the  heart,  aware  how  wrong  it  was,  has  answered, 
and  then  sat  wondering  with  itself  what  the  New 
Birth  might  be.  The  words  have  opened  a  gateway 
of  possible  escape  to  many  a  soul  that  had  seemed 
utterly  imprisoned.  They  have  provoked  and 
eluded  many  a  self-satisfied  and  easy  heart,  and  set 
it  for  the  first  time  to  thinking,  and  wakened  its 
deeper  consciousness.  And  to  hearts  which  God 
had  led  through  the  richest  experiences  and  fully 

193 


194  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

introduced  into  the  new  life,  these  words  have  come 
as  the  interpretation  of  their  own  wonderful  history ; 
and  nothing  has  told  their  own  story  to  themselves 
so  clearly  as  the  words  of  Jesus  when  they  took 
them  up  and  said,  "I  have  been  born  again." 

Such  sacred  associations,  such  hopes  and  mem- 
ories gather  around  this  verse ;  but  still  its  mystery 
distresses  us.  Still,  when  we  hear  it,  we  find  our- 
selves saying  with  Nicodemus,  who  heard  it  first: 
"How  can  these  things  be?  "  Men  are  tempted  by 
the  sound  of  thoroughness  and  authority  and  hope- 
fulness in  it,  but  still  it  is  very  vague  to  them.  I 
wish  that  I  could  make  it  plainer.  I  know  of  course 
that  all  descriptions  of  a  spiritual  experience  must 
be  vague,  except  to  those  who  have  experienced  it. 
No  man  can  intelligibly  tell  what  life  is  save  to  the 
living.  But  the  very  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  chose 
this  common  life  of  ours,  with  its  beginnings  and  its 
endings,  to  represent  the  soul's  deeper  existence, 
seems  to  imply  that  all  men  who  live  the  physical 
life  may,  to  some  extent  at  least,  understand  the 
spiritual  life.  At  any  rate  I  want  to  try  to  make  it 
clearer  than  it  has  been  to  some  of  us — what  Jesus 
meant  when  He  said  that  men  must  be  born  again. 

The  fundamental  difficulty  in  understanding  the 
truth  of  the  new  birth  and  the  new  life  lies  in  at- 
tempting to  grasp  it  as  a  whole,  and  not  in  its  special 
activities.  All  life  grows  vague  if  you  try  to  under- 
stand its  central  essence.  All  life  is  clear,  if  you 
look  at  its  special  exhibitions.  Ask  me  what  life  is 
in  the  most  commonplace  of  living  men  who  stands 
before  me,  and  I  utterly  fail  to  tell  what  it  is  in  its 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  195 

unfound  essence,  or  where  it  lurks  among  the  hiding- 
places  of  the  wondrous  body;  but  when  he  lifts  his 
hand  and  strikes,  when  he  opens  his  mouth  and 
talks,  then  in  a  moment  I  know  unmistakably  the 
living  man.  Now,  so  it  is  with  the  spiritual  life.  It 
is  hard  to  tell  just  what  the  essence  of  the  new 
Christian  life  is  in  any  man.  Theologians  may  con- 
.tend  over  that,  just  as  the  physiologists  contend 
over  the  essence  of  life  in  the  body;  but  the  new 
functions  of  the  new  existence,  the  way  in  which 
each  separate  power  works  differently,  and  each 
separate  act  is  done  differently,  in  the  Christian's 
experience — this  is  not  hard  to  trace. 

For  there  are  different  ways  of  doing  every  act, 
and  undergoing  every  experience  of  life.  There  is 
the  superficial  and  the  profound  way  of  doing  and 
being  everything.  We  will  start  with  that.  I  want 
you  to  recognize  that,  for  every  deed  you  do  and 
for  every  state  in  which  you  live,  there  are  two 
levels ;  one  on  which  the  deed  is  done  or  the  state 
is  lived  in  lightly  and  frivolously ;  the  other,  deeper 
down,  in  which  the  same  deed  is  done  or  the  same 
state  lived  in,  only  seriously,  profoundly,  spiritually. 
A  very  large  part  of  the  discipline  of  life  consists  of 
crowding  men  down  from  the  lighter  upper  level  to 
the  deeper  lower  level.  As  men  are  thus  transferred 
from  the  shallow  to  the  profound  form  of  an  ex- 
perience, it  seems  at  first  as  if  they  passed  out  of 
the  experience  altogether;  but  in  the  end  they  find 
that  they  are  entering  into  it  more  completely. 
There  is  what  we  may  call  a  first  life  and  a  second 
life  of  everything.     As  the  soul  passes  on  from  the 


196  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

first  life  of  anything  into  the  second  life  of  that  same 
thing,  it  seems  to  lose  it,  but  only  to  recover  it 
again.  It  is  born  into  a  certain  life,  lives  that  life 
in  its  first  and  shallower  form,  then  dies  to  it,  and 
afterwards  is  born  to  it  again  in  its  profounder  shape. 
The  first  birth,  the  death,  and  then  the  second  birth, 
are  everywhere. 

This  sounds,  I  doubt  not,  unintelligible  enough, 
stated  thus  abstractly ;  but  I  want  to  point  you  to  a 
series  of  illustrations  and  examples  of  it,  which  may 
make  it  clear.  Let  them  not  seem  too  fragmentary 
and  scattered.  They  shall  come  together  as  the 
illustrations  of  one  single  principle  before  we  close. 

I.  First,  then,  as  simplest  of  all,  I  take  the  matter 
of  happiness.  It  is  easy  to  recognize  the  two  levels 
of  happiness,  and  the  way  in  which  men  pass  from 
the  upper  and  lighter  into  the  profounder  and  more 
serious  one.  Is  this  man  happy,  whom  I  see  in  the 
first  flush  of  youth,  just  feeling  his  new  powers,  the 
red  blood  strong  and  swift  in  all  his  veins,  the  ex- 
quisite delight  of  trying  his  just-discovered  faculties 
of  taste  and  thought  and  skill  filling  each  day  with 
interest  up  to  the  brim?  Is  he  happy,  he  with  his 
countless  friends,  his  easy  home,  the  tools  and  toys 
of  life  both  lying  ready  at  his  hand?  Most  certainly 
he  is.  His  days  sing  as  they  go,  and  sparkle  with  a 
bright  delight  that  makes  the  generous  observer  re- 
joice for  him,  and  makes  the  jealous  envy  him. 

But  then  you  lose  sight  of  him  for  a  while,  and 
years  after  you  come  on  him  again.  The  man  is 
changed.  All  is  so  altered  !  Everything  is  sobered. 
Is  he  happy  still?     As  you  look  into  his  face  you 


THE  NEW  BIRTH 


197 


cannot  doubt  his  happiness  a  moment,  but  neither 
can  you  fail  to  see  that  this  new  happiness  is  some- 
thing very  different  from  that  which  sparkled  there 
before.  This  is  serene  and  steady,  and  as  you  look 
at  it  you  see  that  its  newness  lies  in  this :  that  it  is 
a  happiness  in  principles  and  character,  while  the 
other  was  a  happiness  in  circumstances.  The  man 
whom  you  used  to  know  was  happy  because  every- 
thing was  right  about  him,  because  his  self  was 
thoroughly  indulged,  because  the  sun  shone  and  he 
was  strong.  The  man  whom  you  know  now  is  happy 
because  there  is  goodness  in  the  world,  because  God 
is  governing  it,  because  in  his  own  character  the 
discipline  of  God  is  going  on.  The  first  sort  of 
happiness  was  self-indulgent ;  the  new  sort  is  built 
on  and  around  self-sacrifice.  The  man  you  left  was 
"enjoying  himself,"  as  we  say;  the  man  you  find  is 
at  peace  in  God.  And  to  reach  that  peace  in  God, 
in  principles,  he  must  have  lost  his  old  self-enjoy- 
ment. The  loss  may  have  been  violent,  or  it  may 
have  been  easy.  He  may  have  been  torn  and  wrung 
away  from  his  selfishness,  or  the  strings  that  bound 
him  to  it  may  have  been  gently  untwisted;  but, 
however  it  has  come,  he  has  died  to  his  superficial 
enjoyment  of  self  and  entered  into  a  deeper  happi- 
ness, which  could  have  come  only  through  that  death. 
Can  we  not  see  the  three  levels  as  they  lie  under 
one  another — the  surface-life  of  enjoyment  in  which 
men  are  frolicking  or  basking;  the  middle-life  of  dis- 
appointment in  which  souls  are  struggling,  as  they 
let  go  the  old  to  take  the  new;  and  the  under-life  of 
peace,  where  men  and  women  are  at  rest  in  God? 


198  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

When  we  make  ourselves  spectators  in  the  world, 
how  often  as  we  look  at  some  man  whom  we  know 
we  can  seem  to  see  him  enter  the  uppermost  of  these 
layers  of  life,  and  then  pass  down  as  if  a  great  hand 
pressed  him,  till  he  rests  in  the  profoundest ;  be- 
ginning with  selfish  enjoyment,  passing  thence  into 
disappointment,  and  then  into  godly  peace;  born 
into  superficial  pleasure,  dying  to  that  in  discontent, 
and  born  again  into  profound  and  peaceful  joy. 

2.  Or  take  another  point,  the  point  of  knowledge. 
There  is  a  shallow  and  a  deep,  an  upper  and  a  lower 
knowledge.  The  quick  perception  that  catches  the 
mere  outside  of  things,  and,  recognizing  the  current 
condition  of  affairs,  is  able  to  throw  itself  in  with 
them  and  so  achieve  a  certain  cheap  success;  and 
the  calm,  philosophic  wisdom  which  looks  down  to 
the  roots  of  things  and  sees  their  causes,  and  really 
helps  to  govern  them — those  are  the  two.  Many  a 
young  man,  in  politics  or  in  business  or  in  the 
church,  starts  with  the  first  of  these.  He  knows  all 
the  outside  of  things.  People's  small  ways  and 
habits,  their  superficial  symptoms,  he  is  familiar 
with  them  all.  He  prides  himself  upon  his  knowl- 
edge. But  what  happens,  by  and  by?  Something 
occurs  that  teaches  him  his  ignorance;  and  then, 
baffled,  confused,  dismayed,  his  old  knowledge  lying 
dead  at  his  feet,  he  is  born  again  into  a  profounder 
knowledge  of  the  heart  of  things,  into  a  wisdom 
which  is  moral  and  spiritual  as  well  as  intellectual, 
of  the  heart  and  conscience  as  well  as  of  the  head. 

Have  you  never  heard  a  man  talking  flippantly 
to-day  of  the  world's  system,  of  the  government  of 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  199 

life,  of  the  secrets  of  existence?  and  to-morrow 
some  blow,  some  surprise  has  come  right  into  the 
midst  of  his  knowledge  and  killed  it.  Things  have 
gone  entirely  different  from  what  he  expected,  from 
what  he  prophesied.  He  has  found  how  ignorant 
he  is,  and  has  been  driven  to  the  deeper  understand- 
ing of  a  Will  that  works  under  everything,  to  that 
fear  of  the  Lord  which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom. 
Knowledge,  ignorance,  wisdom — here  are  the  strata 
of  life  again ;  the  first  birth  into  one,  death  through 
the  second,  and  a  new  birth  into  the  third. 

3.  Our  doctrine  applies  perhaps  nowhere  more 
clearly  than  in  the  matter  of  religious  faith.  There 
is  a  first  faith  and  a  second  faith.  The  first  faith  is 
the  easy,  traditional  belief  of  childhood,  taken  from 
other  people,  believed  because  it  belongs  to  the  time 
and  land.  The  second  faith  is  the  personal  convic- 
tion of  the  soul.  It  is  the  heart  knowing,  because 
God  has  spoken  to  it,  the  things  of  God,  the  after- 
faith  that  means  communion.  The  first  faith  has  a 
certain  regulative  force,  but  it  has  no  real,  life-giving 
power  in  it.  The  second  faith  is  full  of  life.  It, 
and  it  alone,  is  the  belief  which  brings  salvation. 
What  comes  between  the  two,  many  of  you  can  tell 
out  of  your  own  experience.  Between  the  shallow 
faith  and  the  profound,  between  the  faith  of  tradi- 
tion and  conviction,  comes  so  often  doubt.  Not 
always.  Sometimes  the  old  faith  dies  into  the  new 
as  gently  as  the  morning  opens  into  noon,  or  the 
spring  spreads  its  full  life  abroad  and  is  the  summer. 
That  is  the  best  and  noblest  way.  But  often  be- 
tween the  seasons  comes  the  equinoctial  storm.    The 


200  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

old  traditional  faith  is  shaken  with  the  wind  of  doubt. 
The  tempest  lasts  through  a  long  night,  perhaps, 
before  the  morning  dawns  in  sunshine,  and  the  soul 
knows  what  it  believes  and  why,  and  is  filled  with 
the  energy  and  peace  of  the  deeper  faith.  Mere  faith 
of  tradition  does  not  save  a  man,  or  bring  him  unto 
God.  Except  he  be  "born  again  "  into  a  faith  of 
personal  conviction,  he  cannot  see  God's  kingdom. 
Faith  of  tradition — doubt, — faith  of  conviction, — so 
lie  the  strata  of  the  deepening  life  through  which 
many  of  the  best  and  ripest  souls  have  passed. 

4.  Or  take  another  region  of  our  life.  Think  of 
our  friendships  and  the  way  they  deepen.  There  is 
the  first  friendship  of  mere  sentiment,  the  easy 
liking  by  which  boys  and  girls  are  drawn  together 
at  school,  or  men  in  the  same  street  or  hotel.  Such 
intimacies  usually  depend  upon  indulgence.  Your 
friend  must  flatter  and  agree  with  you ;  he  must 
think  like  you  and  be  like  you ;  that  is  the  bond 
that  fastens  you  to  one  another.  The  pleasure  of  a 
kindred  spirit  who  will  treat  you  well>  and  fall  in 
with  your  wishes,  and  keep  alive  your  self-esteem, 
— that  is  what  draws  you  to  him,  and  makes  you 
haunt  the  places  where  you  know  that  he  will  be. 
But,  by  and  by,  that  bond  breaks.  Some  jar  comes 
in,  some  incongruity  appears.  You  do  not  think 
alike.  He  will  not  bend  to  all  your  whims;  and  in 
some  disappointment  at  his  non-compliance,  the 
easy  sentimental  friendship  of  your  moral  childhood 
dies. 

And  what  then?  Do  we  not  know?  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  you  are  man  enough  to  substitute 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  201 

a  man's  friendship  for  that  mere  childish  intimacy. 
Can  you  give  up  the  shallow  pleasure  of  hearing 
your  opinions  echoed,  and  having  all  your  fancies 
indulged,  and  like  a  man  meet  another  manly  soul, 
and  submit  to  the  rebukes  of  his  example,  yield  to 
him  where  he  is  a  better  man  than  you,  mount  with 
a  strain  and  effort  up  to  his  level,  or  forgive  and  try 
to  help  him  where  he  fails  and  disappoints  you? 
A  boy's  fondness  and  a  man's  friendship!  Have 
you  not  friends  with  whom  you  began  superficially, 
but  with  whom  you  are  now  living  profoundly? 
Think  of  John  and  James,  leaving  the  boat  and  fol- 
lowing Jesus  Christ  because  His  voice  charmed 
them;  then  disappointed  in  Him  because  he  did  not 
set  up  the  kingdom  they  desired ;  at  last,  drinking 
of  His  cup  and  being  baptized  with  the  baptism  of 
martyrdom  for  Him.  Easy  fondness,  discovered 
differences,  deep  friendship, — these  are  the  levels  in 
the  life  which  we  live  with  one  another. 

5.  Take  another  illustration  from  man's  tendency 
to  be  self-satisfied.  There  is  a  bad  and  a  good  self- 
satisfaction.  The  bad  self-satisfaction  is  only  too 
common.  It  is  what  we  call  self-conceit.  A  man 
seems  to  himself  sufficient  for  everything.  There  is 
no  task  that  he  will  not  accept.  He  does  not  look 
outside  himself.  The  strength  is  in  his  own  arm, 
which  he  can  make  strong  as  iron  to  subdue  his 
foes;  in  his  own  heart,  which  he  can  make  hard  as 
a  rock  to  bear  his  troubles.  For  doing  or  enduring 
he  needs  nothing  but  himself.  He  can  do  anything. 
That  self-conceit  must  die,  or  the  man  is  a  failure. 
Somehow  or   other,  the   man  must    learn  that  in 


202  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

himself  he  can  do  nothing.  Then  comes  humility; 
and  when  in  his  humility  he  casts  himself  upon  an- 
other strength,  and  expects  to  do  nothing  save  in  the 
power  of  God,  then  he  is  born  again  into  a  new  self- 
satisfaction.  To  find  himself  taken  by  God;  to  feel 
that  God  is  giving  him  His  strength;  to  say,  "I  can 
do  anything  through  Christ  "  ;  to  face  the  world  not 
in  his  own  power,  but  in  his  Master's — that  is  the 
new,  the  deeper  self-satisfaction.  He  has  fallen 
from  the  old,  through  self-contempt,  into  this  new. 
Self-contempt  is  not  the  permanent  place  for  any 
human  soul.  The  man  despises  himself  only  that 
he  may  find  a  new  self  which  he  cannot  despise,  the 
self  which  God  made,  the  self  for  which  Christ  died, 
the  self  which  has  great,  solemn  duties  here  and  the 
heritage  of  eternity  awaiting  it.  That  is  a  self  that 
he  must  honor  and  respect.  He  has  fallen  out  of 
self-conceit  through  the  vast  void  of  self-contempt, 
only  to  be  caught  in  the  great  hands  of  God,  who 
knows  the  value  of  his  soul.  Oh,  prone  as  we  are 
to  sink  and  not  to  rise,  let  us  be  thankful  that  God 
is  under  us  to  catch  us  when  we  fall,  as  well  as  over 
us  to  receive  us  when  we  rise  to  Him. 

6.  One  more  illustration,  and  let  it  be  the  solemnest 
of  all — the  history  of  the  fall  and  the  recovery  of  the 
moral  life;  that  account  which  is  written  for  us  in 
the  endlessly  appealing  story  of  the  first  chapters  of 
the  Book  of  Genesis.  There  is  a  first  and  second 
goodness.  Man  is  born  into  a  garden,  as  that  story 
runs.  Right  impulses,  perceptions  that  the  good  is 
better  and  more  beautiful  than  the  bad — these  are 
not   wanting   in    the    early,   the  unregenerate   life. 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  203 

And  yet  that  life  is  unregenerate.  It  must  be  born 
again.  Those  good  impulses,  that  mere  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  goodness,  that  ignorance  of  vice,  are  not 
the  true  strength  of  the  moral  man,  in  which  he  can 
resist  temptation  and  really  grow  to  God.  That 
fails.  He  dies  out  of  that;  and,  once  out  of  that, 
he  never  can  go  back  to  it  again.  The  angels  and 
the  flaming  sword  are  at  the  gate,  to  keep  any  man 
who  has  been  innocent,  and  sinned,  from  ever  re- 
turning to  innocence  again. 

You  who  read  the  strange  first  pages  of  your 
Bible,  and  wonder  whether  in  their  strangeness  they 
be  true  or  not,  would  it  not  be  well  if  you  could 
turn  the  current  of  your  thoughts,  and  think  how 
wonderfully  true  those  pages  are  to  you  and  to  the 
life  that  you  have  lived?  Do  you  remember  when 
you  were  pure,  when  no  foul  thought  had  ever 
crossed  your  mind,  when  no  wind  from  any  quarter 
stirred  one  passionate  desire?  What  a  garden  life 
was  then !  How  God  Himself  walked  with  you 
among  its  trees ! 

And  then  the  devil  came.  One  day  you  lusted 
for  impurity.  Some  temptation,  no  bigger  than  an 
apple,  was  too  strong  for  you.  Have  you  ever  gone 
back?  Has  there  been  one  moment  since  which  is 
like  what  all  the  moments  and  the  months  were  be- 
fore? Has  not  a  flaming  sword  been  at  the  gate  out 
of  which  you  passed  with  that  first  lustful  thought 
or  deed?  Has  not  your  life,  like  all  the  Bible  his- 
tory, thenceforth  strained  and  reached  forward  to  a 
second  goodness,  to  be  gained  only  by  forgiveness 
and  by  struggle? — a  holiness  that  knows  wickedness 


204  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

and  has  escaped  from  it, — not  a  garden  into  which 
man  was  born  at  first,  but  a  heaven  into  which  he 
has  been  brought  past  the  very  mouth  of  hell.  In- 
nocence, Sin,  Redemption — these  are  the  birth,  the 
death,  and  the  new  birth  of  the  moral  life.  It  was 
all  written  first  in  the  Bible,  and  it  is  written  anew 
in  the  experience  of  every  man  who  comes  to  God. 
I  will  not  multiply  our  illustrations.  Here  are 
more  than  enough.  And  now,  what  have  we  reached  ? 
What  is  our  doctrine?  Here,  everywhere,  in  every- 
thing we  do  and  are,  there  is  a  first  and  second  way 
of  doing  or  of  being  it ;  the  first  a  shallow,  light,  un- 
spiritual  way  of  being  happy,  of  knowing  things,  of 
believing  truth,  of  knowing  people,  of  valuing  our- 
selves, or  of  doing  right ;  the  second,  a  profound 
and  serious  and  spiritual  way  of  doing  those  same 
things.  Here  are  the  two  clear  strata  of  life.  One 
lies  under  the  other.  The  parts  correspond ;  the 
actions  are  the  same ;  but  every  act  has  grown  pro- 
found and  rich  and  earnest,  as  you  pass  from  the 
first  into  the  second.  Now  take  those  acts;  com- 
bine them,  and  they  make  a  life ;  they  make  a  man. 
Combine  them  in  the  upper,  lighter  level,  and  they 
make  a  light  and  superficial  man ;  combine  them  in 
the  deeper  level  and  they  make  a  strong,  profound 
man.  For  it  is  these  acts  and  states  which  make  up 
a  man's  manhood.  As  a  man  enjoys,  knows,  be- 
lieves, makes  his  friends,  values  his  life,  attains  to 
goodness,  so  he  is.  These  are  the  constituent  ele- 
ments of  life.  Their  aggregate  makes  up  the  man. 
Let  him  do  all  these  lightly,  and  the  man  is  light.  If 
he  does  all  these  profoundly,  then  he  is  profound. 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  205 

Now,  where  is  the  first  man  to  be  found,  the  man 
who  does  all  these  life-actions  in  the  first,  the  lightest 
way?  Need  I  tell  you?  Is  he  not  all  about  you? 
Here,  in  the  world  that  sparkles  all  over  with  mere 
gayety,  that  rings  with  superficial  information,  shal- 
low belief,  the  noisy  intimacies  of  an  hour;  in  the 
world  full  of  men  tumid  with  self-conceit,  men  who 
know  no  higher  law  of  right  than  impulse,  is  not  our 
first  man  everywhere  in  this  world?  Bright,  pleas- 
ant, quick,  friendly,  we  meet  him  at  every  turn — the 
man  who,  intellectually,  morally,  spiritually,  lives 
on  the  surface  always.  There  is  no  suggestion  of 
eternity  or  of  the  other  world  in  anything  he  says 
or  does  or  is.  He  belongs  entirely  to  time  and  earth. 
He  enjoys  and  knows  and  believes  and  loves  in  the 
first  way.  He  is  the  man  of  the  first  creation,  what 
the  Bible  calls  the  "natural  man."  He  has  only 
entered  into  the  upper  layer  of  life.  He  has  been 
born  only  once.  The  Bible  has  just  the  account  of 
him  which  we  have  tried  to  give,  when  it  says  that 
he  is  the  "first  Adam." 

And  then,  where  is  the  second  kind  of  man? — the 
man  who  does  all  these  great  life-actions  in  the  second 
way,  who  is  profound  in  his  happiness,  his  wisdom, 
his  belief,  his  friendship,  his  self-respect,  his  holi- 
ness ;  the  man  in  whom  each  of  these  acts  is  done  at 
its  fullest  and  richest?  Ah,  there  is  one  Life  whose 
happiness  goes  so  deep  that  the  world  loses  it  and 
calls  it  misery,  whose  wisdom  is  so  profound  that 
the  world  loses  sight  of  it  and  calls  it  folly,  whose 
faith  is  the  constant  witness  of  its  own  nature, 
whose   friendship    is   the   perfection   of  sympathy, 


2o6  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

whose  self-respect  is  the  self-consciousness  of  the 
Son  of  God,  whose  holiness  is  perfection.  Can  you 
feel,  as  you  read  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  He 
was  truly  human,  and  yet  that  He  carried  every 
human  action  and  experience  down  to  its  profoundest 
and  filled  it  full  of  richness?  Can  you  understand 
that  you  are  happy  and  Jesus  Christ  was  happy, 
and  yet  that  His  happiness  lies  far  down  under 
yours,  His  peace  under  your  gayety,  as  a  deeper 
and  profounder  thing;  that  all  the  things  which  you 
do  lightly  He  does  seriously,  what  you  do  carnally 
He  does  spiritually?  If  you  can  see  that,  then  you 
understand  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  Jesus  Christ 
lived  in  the  second  way, — what  St.  Paul  meant 
when  he  said  that  in  Him  we  have  the  "second 
Adam." 

And  then,  what  next?  If  Christ  really  has  the 
power  of  bringing  men  to  be  like  His  manhood ;  if, 
as  St.  Paul  says,  the  second  Adam  "was  made  a 
quickening  spirit";  not  merely  a  "living  soul," 
subsisting  for  Himself,  but  a  "quickening  spirit," 
enlivening  others  into  His  likeness;  then  it  is  He 
that  draws  men  down  and  transfers  them  from  the 
superficialness  of  the  first  to  the  depth  of  the  second 
life.  He  takes  them,  living  superficially,  and,  fasten- 
ing them  to  Himself  by  His  love  awakening  theirs, 
makes  them  live  profoundly.  He  takes  them,  living 
the  first  life,  and  makes  them  live  the  second  life. 
The  beginning  of  life  is  birth.  The  beginning  of  a 
new  life  is  the  new  birth;  and  so  the  coming  by 
Christ  into  that  deeper  world  where  Christ  lives, 
into  that  Kingdom  of  God  which  is  His  home,  is 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  207 

being  "born  again  "  ;  and  except  one  is  born  again 
he  cannot  enter  there. 

That  seems  so  plain.  That  is  as  plain  as  we  can 
make  it  to  ourselves,  until  it  becomes  part  of  our 
own  experience;  and  then  a  flood  of  perfect  light 
runs  over  all  of  it,  and  we  grow  impatient  at  the 
startling  imperfectness  of  any  description  of  that 
which  has  become  so  gloriously  clear  to  us.  Christ 
takes  us  to  Himself.  That  is,  by  the  power  of  love 
we  gradually  grow  more  and  more  like  Him.  As 
that  change  slowly  goes  on  in  us  our  life  slowly 
deepens.  Down  from  the  surface  to  the  soul  of 
things  He  draws  us.  "Where  I  am,  there  shall  also 
my  servant  be"  ;  He  is  fulfilling  that  promise  in  our 
lives.  We  used  to  be  happy  when  circumstances 
were  prosperous ;  He  makes  us  incapable  of  any  real 
happiness  without  the  sense  of  goodness.  He  makes 
us  impatient  of  any  knowledge  that  does  not  go 
back  and  find  His  intention.  The  soul  which  He 
has  called  gives  up  merely  traditional  belief,  and 
holds  to  its  own  personal  assurance  of  Him.  It 
learns  from  His  friendship  to  count  no  friendship 
real  save  heart-communion.  Losing  its  self-conceit, 
it  acquires  a  deep,  daily,  self-satisfaction  in  His  ser- 
vice. Learning  its  sinfulness,  it  enters  on  the  obe- 
dient and  grateful  holiness  of  the  forgiven  soul. 
Everywhere  the  strong  power  of  Christ  draws  it 
down  from  the  shallow  into  the  profound.  The 
deeper  life  of  everything  is  evident  to  it.  It  is  satis- 
fied with  nothing  but  the  roots  of  things.  It  passes 
from  the  weak  life  to  the  strong  life,  from  the  shal- 
low life  to  the  deep  life,  by  Christ.      It  is  "born 


2o8  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

again"  by  the  power  of  Christ.  "He  that  hath  the 
Son  hath  life." 

Born  again !  The  new  birth !  Oh,  these  old 
words  which  so  many  souls  have  puzzled  over  and 
could  not  understand,  and  yet  have  been  fascinated 
by  so  that  they  could  not  let  them  go !  In  silent 
chambers  souls  have  agonized  and  wondered,  "What 
is  it  to  be  born  again? "  In  silent  chambers,  souls, 
conscious  of  a  richer  and  fuller  life,  have  dreamed 
and  questioned  timidly:  "Is  it  possible,  then,  that 
this  is  the  new  birth?  Have  we  come  any  nearer 
to  an  answer  to  it  all  to-day?  Have  we  passed  from 
the  shallow  life  to  the  profound,  from  the  unspiritual 
to  the  spiritual,  from  the  first  life  to  the  second? " 

My  dear  friends,  do  not  believe  that  that  change 
can  ever  come  to  a  man  by  any  mere  course  of 
nature.  As  you  grow  older  you  become  mature 
and  sober;  your  first  excitements  chill,  your  follies 
grow  less  flagrant.  It  is  easy  for  you  to  think  that 
tameness  wisdom,  and  cheat  yourself  into  believing 
that  because  the  pool  of  life  grows  stagnant  it  grows 
deep.  The  profoundness  and  spirituality  of  the 
new  man  is  not  the  mere  result  of  age.  Old  men 
and  women  may  be  very  shallow,  and  little  children 
may  be  already  drawn  by  the  Saviour  whom  they 
love  down  into  the  deepness  of  His  life.  Not  by 
mere  growing  old,  not  by  piling  years  upon  years, 
not  by  continuing  the  shallow  life  forever  does  life 
grow  deep;  but  by  beginning  a  new  life,  by  having 
our  whole  nature  taken  possession  of  by  the  strong 
new  power  of  gratitude  to  Him  who  died  for  us; 
by  being  born  again  through  love  of  Him  into  like- 


THE  NEW  BIRTH  209 

ness  of  Him.  So  only  does  the  life  deepen  as  we 
look  deeper  into  it ;  its  petty  waves  grow  still  and 
there  is  peace ;  its  noisy  feebleness  is  swallowed  up 
and  folded  into  a  calm  strength.  The  bed  on  which 
it  flows  sinks  away  from  us  till  we  lose  sight  of  it 
altogether,  and  when  we  gaze  down  into  it  we  see 
Eternity, 

As  we  enter  into  Christ  these  great  things  come 
to  us.  Oh,  I  plead  with  you  for  a  profounder  life ! 
It  will  not  come  to  you  with  the  mere  lapse  of 
events  and  years.  You  may  grow  old,  and  your 
white  hair  will  cover  as  vacant  laughter  and  as  un- 
meaning tears,  as  idle  thoughts  and  trivial  fancies, 
as  you  carry  about  now.  You  must  take  Christ — 
you  must  let  Christ  take  you  and  draw  you  down 
into  Him,  that  you  may  see  everything  in  Him. 
Then  everything  will  be  new  to  you,  and  you  will 
be  new  to  everything.  The  life  that  you  then  live 
in  the  flesh,  you  will  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of 
God.     You   will  have  been  born   again ;    you    will 

have  entered  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
14 


XIII. 
LIGHT   FROM    DARKNESS. 

"If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is 
that  darkness!  " — Matthew  vi.  23. 

There  are  many  truths  and  teachings  in  these 
deep  words  of  Jesus.  I  have  turned  to  them  more 
than  once  before  for  the  help  and  guidance  which 
they  contain  ;  and  there  are  no  fitter  words  in  all  our 
Saviour's  teaching  to  bring  us  the  idea  which  I  now 
wish  to  dwell  upon.  That  idea  is  that  every  man  has 
his  own  point  of  entrance  for  the  divine  life,  and 
that  if  he  does  not  let  it  in  through  that  door, — 
nay,  if  his  soul  does  not  stand  at  that  door  waiting 
to  welcome  it,  the  divine  life  may  pass  him  by  and 
he  will  be  responsible.  He  will  not  only  be  the 
loser;  he  will  be  to  blame  for  the  earthliness  and 
darkness  in  which  his  life  goes  on.  So  vague  and 
loose  and  unreasonable  are  the  thoughts  of  most 
people  as  to  the  way  in  which  men  become  Chris- 
tians; so  often  it  seems  to  most  people  as  if  it  were 
all  a  mystery,  without  explanation  and  without  law, 
as  to  whether  God  would  come  to  men  with  His 
Spirit,  and  as  to  how  He  would  come;  that  I  think 
it  must  be  a  great  help  to  us  if  we  can  clearly  under- 
stand  that  there   is  such  a  principle  as  this :  that 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  211 

every  man  has  his  strong,  characteristic  point  of 
temperament,  of  occupation,  or  of  circumstances, 
where,  if  the  Spirit  of  God  ever  does  come  to  him, 
it  will  be  sure  to  come,  and  by  the  nature  of  which 
the  nature  of  the  spiritual  life  which  is  possible  for 
him  must  be  determined. 

I  may  not  be  sure  that  the  great  royal  guest  who 
is  travelling  through  the  land  will  come  into  my 
poor  house;  but  I  know  that,  if  he  does  come,  he 
will  have  to  come  up  just  that  homely  path  and 
through  that  humble  doorway  which  lead  to  it ; 
therefore  I  keep  its  passage  clear  and  its  bolts  drawn 
back.  I  do  not  know  that  the  sun  will  shine  out 
from  behind  the  cloud ;  but  I  know  that  if  it  does, 
this  and  this  are  the  bright  summit-points  which  it 
must  kindle  into  flame,  and  from  which  its  glory 
must  be  reflected  to  all  the  rest  of  the  great  build- 
ing. I  do  not  know  that  I  can  ever  win  the  friend- 
ship of  such  and  such  a  man,  who  is  far  wiser  and 
more  than  I  am ;  but  I  know  that  my  only  chance 
is  not  in  trying  to  be  something  which  I  am  not,  or 
in  pretending  to  be  it,  but  solely  in  being  frankly 
and  thoroughly  what  I  am,  and  in  offering  him  that 
nature  for  his  life  to  play  upon  and  for  his  heart  to 
love,  if  he  can  love  it.  I  do  not  know  that  I  can 
ever  understand  this  idea  which  other  men  seem  to 
make  much  of — this  philosophy  which  all  mankind 
are  praising,  this  school  of  thought  which  evidently 
has  great  truth  in  it — I  do  not  know  that  I  can 
ever  make  it  mine ;  but  I  do  know  that  if  I  ever  do 
get  hold  of  it,  it  must  be  with  this  particular  hand 
of  my  nature  that  I  seize  it,  and  so  my  study  shall 


212  LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS 

be  to  keep  this  hand,  in  which  my  hope  lies,  flexible 
and  alert. 

All  these  are  illustrations  of  one  truth  from  vari- 
ous regions  of  life.  In  every  region  there  is  some 
point  through  which  the  darkness  of  the  whole  re- 
gion must  be  reached  by  any  light.  If  light  comes, 
it  must  be  caught  there  and  radiated  thence  through- 
out the  whole.  Upon  that  point,  then,  anxiety 
fastens  itself,  and  that  point  becomes  critical.  To 
that  point  the  warning  applies :  "If  the  light  become 
darkness,  how  great  is  that  darkness!  " 

Now,  I  think  that  what  a  great  many  men  need  is 
to  realize  that  just  that  is  true  about  religion.  There 
is  some  point  in  their  nature,  their  occupation,  or 
their  circumstances,  something  in  them  made  up 
from  their  nature,  their  occupation,  or  their  cir- 
cumstances, which  marks  how  they  are  to  be  Chris- 
tians, and  what  sort  of  Christians  they  are  to  be. 
Religion  does  not  fall  into  a  nature  like  a  shower 
from  the  clouds.  It  enters  like  a  guest  into  the 
gate.  Every  man  may  say  this  much  of  himself :  I 
do  not  know  that  I  can  ever  be  religious,  but  if  I  am, 
I  am  such  a  man,  so  built  by  nature  and  so  shaped 
by  circumstances,  that  it  is  thus  and  thus  that  my 
religion  must  come  in.  And  when  a  man  has  real- 
ized that,  then  self-study  must  become  a  very  seri- 
ous and  earnest  thing,  and  the  responsibility  for  the 
open  door  of  his  own  soul  a  very  distinct  and  ever- 
present  consciousness.  The  watch  over  the  light 
that  is  in  him,  lest  it  should  turn  into  darkness, 
must  be  a  continual  care. 

Let  us  follow  this  somewhat  more  into  detail.     I 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  213 

have  alluded  to  the  nature,  the  occupations,  and  the 
circumstances  of  men  as  the  elements  which  decide 
what  sort  of  door  in  them  shall  open  to  religion. 
And  we  may  speak  in  turn  of  each  of  these. 

I.  And,  first,  about  men's  natures.  There  are 
broad,  deep  differences  of  character  which  decide  for 
men  the  nature  of  their  Christian  life.  They  make 
great  chasms.  He  who  is  a  Christian  on  one  side 
of  them,  is  different  from  him  who  is  a  Christian  on 
the  other.  Lift  up  your  eyes  and  look  at  the  differ- 
ence of  the  very  essential  natures  of  men,  as  they 
stand  together  in  our  picturesque  and  various  hu- 
manity. One  class  or  division  of  men  lives  in 
thought.  Everything  is  to  them  a  problem.  An- 
other class  lives  in  action.  Everything  is  to  them  a 
task.  There  are  the  men  of  solitude,  who  seek  to 
be  alone  as  naturally  as  the  beast  flees  into  the 
forest ;  and  there  are  the  men  of  society  who  seek 
to  be  together  as  naturally  as  the  cattle  collect 
themselves  in  herds.  Some  men  are  always  con- 
servative ;  they  cannot  do  a  rash  thing.  Other  men 
are  all  enterprise ;  they  cannot  do  a  prudent  thing. 
Some  men  are  intrinsically  self-reliant.  Other  men 
must  rest  their  hand  upon  some  brother's  shoulder, 
and  then  they  can  do  valiant  work.  Some  men  are 
credulous  and  long  to  believe.  Other  men  are 
skeptical,  and  to  doubt  is  to  them  as  native  as  to 
breathe.  Everywhere  are  the  differences  of  natures. 
There  need  be  no  end  to  the  enumeration. 

And  what  do  these  differences  mean?  What  shall 
we  say  about  them?  What  shall  we  think  when,  out 
of  the  confusion  of  our  own  self- watched  lives,  there 


214  LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS 

comes  gradually  forth  a  consciousness  of  what  we 
are,  of  what  the  special  nature  is  in  us  that  separates 
and  distinguishes  us  from  other  men?  Shall  we 
merely  be  fascinated  and  dazzled  with  the  sparkling 
variety  of  life  in  general?  Shall  we  simply  be  hum- 
bled or  exalted  with  the  smallness  or  the  glory  of 
the  separate  distinctive  quality  which  we  discover  in 
our  own  selves?  If  there  is  a  higher  life  for  man  to 
live,  if  there  is  a  sunshine  which  may  break  over  all 
this  human  landscape  and  transfigure  it,  then  to  any 
man  who  knows  that  such  a  sunshine  is,  and  who 
expects  its  dawning,  the  landscape  as  a  whole,  and 
every  bit  of  it,  must  get  its  value  from  its  actual 
or  possible  relationship  to  that  sunshine.  Every 
variety  of  character  must  be  prized  because  it  can 
catch  the  life,  the  love,  the  authority,  of  God,  in 
some  way  especially  its  own;  and  every  man's  own 
nature,  as  he  comes  to  know  it,  must  interest  him 
because  he  knows,  in  knowing  it,  how  he  is  to  know 
God,  whom  truly  to  know  is  truly  and  thoroughly 
to  live. 

Our  modern  novels  study  character  with  wonder- 
ful acuteness.  Our  essayists  depict  the  infinite  va- 
riety of  men  which  exists  within  the  evident  unity 
of  man.  Men  pore  over  themselves,  and  make 
themselves  proud  or  miserable  with  understanding 
or  misunderstanding  what  they  are.  It  is  poor  busi- 
ness, unless  man  knows  what  man  is  for;  and  is 
seeking  to  know  himself  only  that  he  may  open 
himself  more  abundantly  to  God.  Take  for  instance 
the  last  of  the  kinds  of  character  of  which  I  spoke 
just  now:  a  man  studies  his  own  nature,  and  says 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  215 

as  the  result,  "Yes,  I  am  skeptical.  I  question 
everything.  I  cannot  help  it.  It  is  innate.  I  did 
it  when  I  was  a  child.  I  shall  do  it  till  I  die.  I 
shall  do  something  like  it  after  I  am  dead  and  am 
gone  to  heaven.  What  then?  Is  that  a  sign  that 
there  is  no  Christian  faith  for  me,  and  an  excuse 
from  all  responsibility  to  seek  it?  Surely  not. 
That  very  skepticism  must  be  the  door  by  which  I 
must  stand  to  keep  the  passage  pure  and  clear.  I 
must  be  responsible  for  it.  I  must  not  merely  doubt 
men's  affirmations;  I  must  doubt  my  own  doubts. 
I  must  question  the  denials  that  men  bring.  I 
must  keep  my  questioning  faculty  pure  of  conceit, 
and  so  out  of  this  sifting  of  doubt  on  doubt,  at  last 
the  precious  kernel  of  truth  may  lie  there  shining 
and  manifest,  —  not  wrapt  in  so  many  envelopes, 
perhaps,  as  some  other  men  wrap  their  belief  in,  and 
so  not  looking  as  if  it  were  as  large  as  theirs,  but 
yet  all  there,  and  all  the  more  clearly  there,  all  the 
more  strongly  held,  because  of  the  very,  native 
skepticalness  of  the  soul  that  holds  it." 

This  must  be  so.  Either  the  questioning  temper 
is  a  disease,  and  not  a  nature,  which  all  our  experi- 
ence tells  us  is  not  the  truth ;  or  else  there  are  some 
souls  built  by  the  God  that  made  them  as  if  one 
built  a  house  for  himself  to  dwell  in,  but  built  it 
standing  on  its  outside,  and  left  no  door  for  him- 
self, its  destined  occupant,  to  get  in  at  when  it  was 
done.  Either  one  or  other  of  these  things  is  true. 
Or  else  a  doubting  temper,  if  it  be  pure  and  not 
dimmed  and  blocked  up  with  self-conceit,  may  be 
itself  a  window  for  God  to  shine  through,  a  door  for 


2i6  LIGHT  FROM   DARKNESS 

God  to  come  through.  There  was  a  faith  in  Thomas 
by  reason  of  his  doubt,  not  merely  in  spite  of 
his  doubt.  His  doubt  was  the  light  that  was  in 
him. 

Here  is  a  kind  of  self-study  and  self-knowledge 
which  is  precious  indeed.  Here  is  a  value  for  our 
own  peculiar  nature  which  brings  to  one  who  has  it 
a  quiet,  grave,  and  lofty  self-respect  and  joy,  in  being 
what  he  is,  that  is  as  pure  of  self-conceit  as  it  is  filled 
with  solemn  responsibility. 

Why  is  it  that  you  love  the  house  where  you  have 
lived  from  your  childhood, — that  you  honor  it 
and  would  be  very  sorry  to  live  in  any  other?  You 
know  it  is  not  the  best  house  in  town ;  there  are 
better  houses  by  the  score ;  but  this  is  yours.  In  it 
your  life  has  taken  shape.  In  through  its  window 
the  sky  and  sun  and  stars  have  looked  at  you  and 
given  you  impressions  of  themselves.  In  through 
its  doors  your  friends  have  entered  with  their  in- 
fluences. The  shapes  of  its  rooms,  the  windings  of 
its  passages,  have  formed  the  habits  in  which  the  joy 
and  sorrow  of  your  life  have  taken  coloring.  And 
so  the  value  of  your  home  is  in  the  way  in  which 
life  has  come  to  you  through  it. 

Very  like  indeed,  I  think,  to  men's  relations  to 
their  homes  is  their  relation  to  their  natures.  In 
the  qualities  of  their  natures,  as  in  the  walls  of  their 
houses,  their  selves  abide,  which  are  one  with  and 
yet  are  other  than  the  natures  they  abide  in ;  and 
through  them  to  this  inner  self  comes  God,  And 
the  soul  that  has  learned  to  love  God  forever  honors 
and  loves  the  nature  through  which  God  came  to  it, 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  217 

with  that  special  manifestation  of  Himself  which  is 
its  life. 

2.  Think,  secondly,  about  the  occupations  of  our 
lives,  and  see  how  they,  too,  get  their  real  signifi- 
cance and  value  as  the  entrance-points  of  God  into 
us,  and  the  exhibition-points  of  God  through  us  to 
other  men.  You  sit  here  in  church,  in  this  Sunday 
promiscuousness,  the  representatives  of  very  various 
occupations.  You  did  different  things  yesterday. 
You  will  do  different  things  to-morrow.  One  of 
you  sells  goods,  another  builds  houses,  another 
pleads  causes,  another  counts  money,  another  cures 
sickness :  what  does  it  all  mean?  Is  it  merely  a  con- 
venient distribution  of  the  work  that  has  been  done 
in  the  world,  as  if  the  master  of  a  house  said  to  one 
servant,  "You  sweep  the  sidewalk  while  another 
piles  the  wood"?  Must  it  not  be  far  more  than 
that?  Remember  how  we  spend  our  lives  in  doing 
these  different  things.  Remember  that  the  powers 
which  the  doing  of  these  different  things  calls  out  in 
us  are  widely  different.  And  if  the  giving  of  God's 
life  to  a  man's  life  is  always  in  connection  with  some 
human  activity,  some  action  of  its  powers, — if  God 
cannot  give  Himself  to  a  totally  passive  creature, — 
must  it  not  follow  that  according  to  the  sort  of 
activity  that  prevails  in  our  lives,  so  will  be  our  re- 
ception of  God,  our  relation  to  His  authority  and 
love  and  teaching,  which  is  our  religion? 

Let  any  religious  man  among  you  suppose  that 
the  whole  occupation  of  his  life  had  been  different 
from  what  it  has  been ;  suppose  that  all  these  years 
you  had  been  tilling  the  ground  instead  of  selling 


2i8  LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS 

goods,  or  building  houses  instead  of  teaching  schools ; 
could  your  religion  have  been  just  what  it  has  been, 
just  what  it  is  to-day?  If  so,  then  your  religion 
must  have  been  a  very  limited  and  partial  thing,  a 
candle  burning  in  some  shut  and  sacred  chamber  of 
your  life,  not  a  true  fire  burning  all  though  your 
life  and  keeping  it  all  ablaze.  And  what  a  terrible 
waste  there  has  been  if  all  your  professional  life,  all 
your  life  in  your  trade  or  occupation,  has  been  kept 
so  purely  secular  that  it  has  given  no  character  to 
your  religion !  It  is  sure  to  be  equally  true  that  it 
has  got  no  character  from  your  religion  either.  No ; 
in  a  true  sense  a  man's  occupation  is  his  living.  It 
is  the  true  front  door  to  his  life.  By  it  the  visitor 
or  the  occupant  of  the  life  must  come  in. 

What  you  ought  to  teach  your  boy,  when  he  makes 
the  selection  of  his  work  in  life,  is  that  the  deepest 
and  most  critical  value  of  that  selection  is  that  he  is 
really  choosing  in  what  way  he  shall  ask  the  God  to 
whom  his  life  belongs  to  come  and  take  possession 
of  his  life.  And  when  his  selection  is  once  made, 
you  ought  to  make  him  know  that  there,  in  his  pro- 
fession, is  where  he  is  to  look  for  God  to  come  to 
him.  It  is  in  the  power  to  resist  its  special  tempta- 
tions that  he  is  to  learn  what  wonderful  strength 
God  can  give.  It  is  in  the  training  of  the  peculiar 
powers  of  usefulness  which  it  develops  that  he  is  to 
receive  God's  gracious  education.  It  is  in  the  con- 
solation of  its  peculiar  sorrows  that  he  is  to  lay  hold 
of  God's  abounding  comfort ;  and  it  is  in  the  charac- 
ter which  his  profession,  at  its  best,  demands,  that 
he  is  to  manifest  the  life  of  God  before  mankind. 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  219 

Such  a  conviction  about  any  man's  profession,  fill- 
ing his  soul  as  he  went  into  it,  would  have  two  good 
results.  It  would  at  once  enlarge  it  and  sanctify  it. 
To  the  Christian  merchant,  the  man  who  is  so  thor- 
oughly a  merchant  that  he  sees  clearly  that  if  he  is 
to  be  a  Christian  at  all,  it  is  a  merchant  Christian 
that  he  must  be, — to  such  a  man  his  mercantile  life 
enlarges  itself  until  it  becomes  for  him  the  type  of 
all  service  of  God,  and  puts  him  into  communion 
and  sympathy  with  all  God's  servants  everywhere; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  being  his  special  form  of  ser- 
vice, it  acquires  a  sacredness  and  is  done  with  a 
scrupulousness  that  no  merely  secular  occupation, 
considered  only  as  secular,  could  command. 

It  is  this  union  of  largeness  and  specialness  that 
makes  the  truest  beauty  of  all  human  life.  The 
man  whose  sense  of  his  own  personalness  is  most 
intense,  and  yet  who  in  it  reads  the  parable  of  the 
greater  personality  of  Man,  and  through  it  is  kept 
in  truest  sympathy  with  all  his  race ;  he  always  is 
the  richest  and  most  interesting  man.  The  land- 
scape that  fascinates  you  with  its  own  clear  beauty, 
and  at  the  same  time  suggests  the  beauty  of  all  the 
variously  beautiful  world,  is  always  the  most  power- 
ful to  satisfy  the  soul.  And  so  the  task  that  twines 
your  conscientious  interest  into  its  minute  details 
and  at  the  same  time  makes  you  one  with  all  workers 
in  all  faithful  work, — that  is  the  task  which  most 
feeds  the  life  of  him  who  does  it.  And  such  a  char- 
acter belongs  not  to  any  one  occupation  or  class  of 
occupations,  but  to  any  occupation  occupied  re- 
ligiously, to  any  duty  done  in  conscious  obedience 


220  LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS 

to  God,  and  valued  as  the  means  by  which  He  with 
His  help  and  authority  and  teaching  may  come  in 
and  take  possession  of  the  soul. 

3.  I  spoke  of  the  natures  of  men  and  of  their  oc- 
cupations as  making  them  special  points  for  the  re- 
flection of  the  light  of  God,  and  I  spoke  also  of  their 
circumstances.  "If  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  dark- 
ness how  great  is  that  darkness!  "  says  Christ,  and 
I  think  that  His  words  may  well  apply  to  any  pe- 
culiar condition  into  which  He  leads  one  of  our  lives, 
and  by  which  He  means  to  make  at  once  a  deeper 
entrance  into  that  life,  and  a  larger  illumination  from 
it.  There  is  something  lost  when  any  experience 
which  God  meant  to  have  burn  with  Himself  is 
allowed  to  stand  dark  in  irreligiousness. 

A  man  goes  down  a  street  as  night  comes  on,  and 
lights  the  long  row  of  lamps  so  that  by  and  by  the 
whole  street  is  bright.  But  in  the  long  row  there  is 
one  lamp  which  refuses  to  be  lighted,  and  will  not 
burn,  or  which  goes  out  after  the  man  with  the 
torch  has  passed  on  his  way.  What  is  the  conse- 
quence? Will  there  not  be  all  night  a  dark  spot  in 
the  street,  where  that  unlighted  lamp  comes?  Will 
not  each  passenger  stop  there  or  stumble?  Will  not 
the  stones  or  pitfalls  that  lie  just  there  be  the  most 
dangerous?  and  will  not  that  one  unlighted  spot 
make  the  whole  street  unsafe,  no  matter  how 
brightly  all  the  rest  may  shine?  So  God,  I  think, 
goes  down  our  life  and  touches  every  experience 
with  Himself,  and  as  every  experience  becomes  con- 
scious of  having  come  from  Him  and  of  possibly  re- 
vealing Him,  it  burns  with  Him.     With  the  burning 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  221 

of  all  those  experiences  with  God,  our  whole  life 
becomes  gradually  alight. 

But  now,  suppose  that  there  is  one  experience 
which,  as  God  touches  it,  refuses  to  be  lighted,  or, 
after  He  has  lighted  it,  goes  out.  There  is  one  thing 
which  has  happened  to  us  which  we  never  can  think 
of  as  having  come  from  God ;  what  will  the  conse- 
quence be?  Will  there  not  always  be  one  dark  spot 
just  there  in  the  long  street  of  our  life?  Will  not 
the  temptations  and  the  doubts  which  arise  in  con- 
nection with  that  one  event  be  always  specially 
dangerous,  and  will  not  our  whole  life,  no  matter 
how  bright  the  illumination  of  all  the  rest  may 
be,  be  always  unsafe  because  of  that  one  unlighted 
experience  ? 

Oh,  how  many  lives  there  are  which  have  some 
such  unilluminated  experience  somewhere  in  them! 
Something  happened  to  you  once  which  you  never 
could  believe  that  God  sent,  or  which  you  have 
never  been  able  to  keep  associated  with  Him.  Your 
child  died,  and  you  could  not  believe  that  He  took 
it.  Your  child  recovered,  and  you  could  not  believe 
that  He  restored  it.  You  made  a  fortune,  and  it 
seemed  the  triumph  of  your  own  shrewdness.  You 
made  a  friend,  and  it  seemed  the  triumph  of  your 
own  attractiveness.  You  rose  up  from  a  sick  bed, 
and  thanked  nobody  but  the  doctors.  You  did  a 
hard  duty,  and  congratulated  yourself  upon  the  self- 
respect  that  had  kept  you  from  being  mean  or  cruel. 
What  is  the  consequence?  Just  at  that  point  there 
is  a  lamp  unlighted  in  your  life.  Whenever  your 
memory  goes  by  that  point,  it  stumbles ;  for  it  walks 


222  LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS 

in  darkness.  Whenever  you  have  to  meet  those 
same  emergencies  again,  to  welcome  back  another 
child  from  the  grave's  mouth,  or  to  see  another  child 
depart  from  you  to  God,  or  to  make  another  friend, 
or  to  resist  a  new  temptation,  no  light  comes  stream- 
ing out  from  the  old  experience  to  make  the  new 
one  plain.  What  is  there  left  for  us  but  to  cry  out 
after  Him  who  is  the  Light-giver  that  He  will  come 
back,  and  even  now  touch  that  old  dark  experience 
with  His  illumination,  so  that  it  may  be  a  help  and 
not  a  hindrance,  a  light  and  not  a  darkness,  in  our 
lives? 

This  is  the  way,  then,  in  which  circumstances  or 
experiences  become  interpreters  of  God,  His  points 
of  introduction  to  our  lives.  And  here  again  there 
is  the  same  meeting  of  specialness  with  generalness 
of  which  I  spoke  before.  God  comes  into  our  life 
through  one  experience,  but  having  come  through 
that  experience  He  spreads  Himself  then  through  all 
the  life.  He  occupies  the  entire  house.  There  are 
many  histories  among  you,  my  friends,  that  will 
bear  testimony  to  this.  God  revealed  Himself  to 
you  first  when  He  cured  you  of  your  sickness,  but 
the  God  who  then  came  to  you,  you  have  found 
since,  is  One  who  can  do  many  another  thing  besides 
making  sick  people  well.  Nay,  so  complete  is  the 
knowledge  of  Himself  that  He  gives  us,  when  He 
has  once  entered  into  us,  that  very  often  the  God 
who  showed  Himself  first  as  the  Healer  of  sickness 
has  appeared  by  and  by  again  as  the  Sender  of  sick- 
ness, and  even  as  the  Summoner  of  souls  by  death, 
and  has  been  recognized  through  all  the  tears  of 


LIGHT  FROM  DARKNESS  223 

sorrow  by  that  first  knowledge  of  Him  which  was 
won  in  the  bright  atmosphere  of  joy. 

Before  I  close  let  me  say  one  word  more.  I  have 
dared  to  talk  to-day  as  if  the  special  care  of  God  for 
every  man,  and  for  every  act  and  experience  of  every 
man,  were  not  too  great  a  thought  for  man  to  think, 
not  too  vast  or  incredible  a  faith  for  man  to  hold. 
To  some  people,  to  many  people,  it  does  seem  in- 
credible. But,  oh,  remember  that  unless  we  believe 
that,  there  is  no  real  vitality  in  our  religion.  And 
ought  it  to  be  incredible  if  we  understood  what 
God  is?  The  sun  shines  down  upon  a  mountain  side, 
and  every  pebble  catches  its  splendor  and  shines 
back  its  answer.  And  if  you  say,  "But  the  sun  has 
no  feeling,  no  affection,"  then  think  of  a  great  fam- 
ily and,  tell  me,  does  a  true  father  grow  bewildered 
among  his  children,  and  love  or  protect  the  least 
less  than  the  greatest?  Only  make  fatherhood  per- 
fect and  infinite,  and  you  have  God.  It  is  only  the 
essential  difficulty  of  grasping  the  infinite  that  makes 
it  so  hard  to  conceive  that  God  can  care  for  all  His 
children  personally,  and  never  forget  the  feeblest  of 
them. 

And  yet,  hard  as  it  is,  men  do  believe  it.  Christ 
makes  men  believe  it.  We  cannot  live  with  Him 
and  not  believe  it ;  because  He  believes  it  so  in- 
tensely. He  knows  it  so  clearly.  Let  us  try  to  live 
very  near  to  Him,  and  then  we  cannot  help  believ- 
ing it,  cannot  help  knowing  it ;  and  then  we  cannot 
walk  in  darkness,  but  shall  surely  have  the  Light  of 
Life. 


XIV. 

AVERAGE   AND   ABSOLUTE   VIRTUE. 

"Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth  :  But  I  say  unto  you,  Resist  not  evil." — Matthew 
V.  38  (R.  v.). 

It  is  not  of  the  special  injunction  of  Christ  in 
these  words  that  I  want  to  speak,  but  of  the  general 
spirit  which  inspires  this  and  a  great  many  others  of 
our  Lord's  commandments.  Christ  found  a  host  of 
men  who  had  simply  accepted  the  standards  of  theit 
time.  They  found  a  certain  type  and  degree  of  con- 
scientiousness current  around  them.  Jerusalem  ex- 
pected them  to  be  as  good  as  this  standard,  and 
asked  of  them  no  more.  Moses  and  David,  in  the 
course  of  centuries,  pressed  flat  by  the  hard,  unsym- 
pathetic hands  of  commentators,  pared  down  and 
explained  away  by  the  necessities  of  practical  liv- 
ing, had  degenerated  from  great  spiritual  inspirations 
into  sets  of  rules.  Everything  had  become  formal. 
The  world  had  fixed  its  standard  of  how  good  a  man 
should  be,  and  no  man  was  expected  to  be  better 
than  his  world. 

We  can  well  imagine  with  what  spirit  Christ  must 
have  faced  that  state  of  things.  With  His  informal 
soul,  with  His  spontaneous  freedom,  with  His  sense 

224 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE      225 

of  God  and  man,  with  His  firm  conviction  that  man 
was  the  child  of  God,  and  that  there  was  no  limit  to 
the  degree  of  nearness  to  his  Father  into  which 
every  man  might  come,  the  whole  system  of  hard 
limitations  must  have  been  odious  to  Him.  His 
soul  desired  the  sky,  and  men  had  built  a  roof 
against  which  every  man  just  grazed  his  head,  and 
which  shut  the  sky  out  from  their  aspiration  alto- 
gether. Therefore  came  His  protests  fast  and  warm. 
Men  say,  "You  shall  not  kill";  I  say,  "You  shall 
not  hate."  Men  say,  "You  shall  not  commit 
adultery  "  ;  I  say,  "You  shall  not  lust."  Men  say, 
"You  shall  not  swear  falsely";  I  say,  "You  shall 
not  swear  at  all."  Men  say,  "You  shall  love  your 
friends";  I  say,  "You  shall  love  everybody." 

Can  we  not  picture  to  ourselves  how  words  like 
these  of  Jesus  must  have  come  to  many  a  generous 
young  spirit  in  Jerusalem  as  the  Master  spoke? 
"Lo,  then,  it  is  not  wrong,  or  foolish,  or  conceited, 
this  sense  of  which  my  heart  has  been  full — that 
men  have  got  the  whole  thing  too  hard  and  small. 
It  is,  then,  right, — this  desire,  this  struggle  to  be 
better  than  my  world.  Listen,  my  heart,  and  hear, 
oh,  hear  what  He  is  saying  now:  'Be  ye  therefore 
perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect.' 

No  picture  of  Christ  is  clearer  in  the  Gospels  than 
that  in  which  He  is  seen  standing  face  to  face  with 
human  life,  and  uttering  His  call  to  men.  "Be  better 
than  your  world,"  He  cries.  He  opened  the  great 
door  of  a  completer  life,  and  said  to  all  His  hearers, 
"Go  in  there."  Some,  the  few,  heard  and  obeyed. 
Many,  the  most,  drew  back.     What  call  was  there 

IS 


226     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

for  them  to  be  more  holy  than  their  fellows?  But 
how  often,  to  the  best  of  them, — as  afterwards  all 
through  their  life  they  went  their  way,  quenching 
their  higher  impulses  and  drilling  themselves  into 
conformity  with  the  world's  standards, —  the  call 
which  they  once  heard  must  have  come  back  as  the 
memory  of  the  morning  comes  back  to  the  hot  and 
dusty  noon,  and  they  must  have  stopped  a  moment, 
and  dreamed  of  how,  if  they  had  listened  to  that 
voice,  they  might  have  lived  different  lives,  might 
have  been  better  than  their  world. 

I  wish  that  I  could  make  you  hear  that  voice  to- 
day. You  need  to  hear  it ;  for  everywhere  around 
us,  when  a  man  aspires  after  a  life  in  any  way  larger 
or  better  than  the  average  of  the  life  by  which  he  is 
surrounded,  there  come  two  results ;  first  a  misgiving 
in  himself,  and  secondly  an  outcry  from  his  neigh- 
bors. It  is  so  in  all  departments.  You  are  moved 
to  believe  some  richer  doctrine  than  the  special  creed 
which  you  have  been  taught  contains.  And  then 
your  own  heart  rises  up  and  you  say,  "Who  am  I 
that  I  should  find  out  truth  which  my  fathers  did 
not  know?  "  Or  you  are  moved  to  question  some- 
thing which  has  been  long  and  widely  held  for  true ; 
and  again  your  heart  is  ready  with  its  cry,  "Has  not 
this  dogma  held  mankind  for  generations?  Why 
should  I  stir  myself?  Let  me  quietly  accept  it." 
Or  there  comes  some  moan  into  your  ears  out  of  the 
mass  of  misery  which  we  call  poverty ;  and  you  start 
up  to  go  out  and  help  it;  and  all  the  selfishness 
around  you  lifts  up  its  voice  in  wonder.  You  set 
yourself  against  some  commonly  accepted  business 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE     227 

fraud,  or  blunder;  and  all  the  business  world,  ac- 
cording as  it  thinks  your  protest  dangerous  or  simply- 
silly,  calls  you  knave  or  fool.  You  remonstrate 
against  the  action  of  your  political  party,  and  your 
party  is  only  troubled  to  know  whether  you  are  a 
hypocrite  or  a  Pharisee.  You  plead  for  purer  social 
life,  and  society  gazes  at  you  with  a  stony  stare. 
You  cannot  hide  so  carefully  the  effort  to  make  your 
own  soul  purer  and  holier  but  that  the  world  feels 
this  strange  thing  which  is  going  on  in  it,  and  with 
something  almost  like  indignation  wonders  why  you 
need  be  so  scrupulous  and  fine.     So  it  is  everywhere. 

I  would  not  seem  to  think  that  this  is  the  only 
feeling  which  the  effort  of  any  man  to  be  better  than 
his  world  excites.  I  do  not  ignore,  I  am  sure, 
either  that  enthusiastic  hope  which  springs  up  in 
the  struggling  soul  itself,  or  that  instinctive  homage 
and  respect  which,  under  all  contempt  and  opposi- 
tion, still  exists  to  greet  the  man  who  is  not  satis- 
fied to  live  merely  in  the  average  of  his  brethren. 
Those  are  real  things.  But  also  real  is  that  dislike, 
that  disposition  to  recall  and  repress  his  endeavor, 
which  welcomes  the  adventurous  man.  Partly  it  is 
because  he  rebukes  the  self-satisfied  lethargy  of 
other  men.  That  is  not  all  the  reason.  But,  be 
the  reason  what  it  may,  the  fact  exists.  Each  brave 
man  meets  and  has  to  face  it.  And  so  I  ask  you  to 
study  it  with  me  a  little  while. 

The  first  thing  which  we  wish  to  understand,  if 
we  can,  is  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  fact  we  have 
to  deal  with,  and  whence  it  comes.  What  is  this 
general  standard  of  morality  and  life,  below  which 


228     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

a  man  cannot  fall  without  disgrace,  but  above  which 
it  is  not  wholly  safe  for  a  man  to  try  to  rise?  It  is 
a  strange  phenomenon.  It  is  not  uniform.  It 
varies  most  unaccountably  in  different  times  and 
places.  It  is,  no  doubt,  in  a  rude  way,  the  expres- 
sion of  the  height  which  the  average  virtue,  in  any 
given  place  or  time,  has  attained,  the  tide-mark  of 
the  morality  of  this  especial  time  and  place. 

But  there  is  more  account  than  that  to  give  of  it. 
The  public  standard  is  very  apt  to  bear  the  mark  of 
three  causes  which  are  very  temporary  and  local, 
but  which  must  make  themselves  felt  where  they 
exist.  The  first  of  these  is  the  especial  need  of 
the  especial  time.  Certain  virtues  are  particularly 
valued,  and  certain  vices  are  made  light  of,  because 
of  the  peculiar  condition  which  society  has  reached. 
The  vices  which  seem  most  dangerous  are  most  con- 
demned and  hated.  Thus,  in  our  newer  Western 
communities,  theft  is  punished  with  summary  se- 
verity, while  baser  crimes  are  made  but  little  of. 
To  steal  a  horse  has  sometimes  been  thought  worse 
than  to  kill  a  man.  The  second  of  these  influences 
is  the  power  of  reaction.  Some  long-neglected 
virtue  by  and  by  gets  its  chance,  and  wins  for  itself 
an  excessive  prominence.  Thus,  after  a  long  period 
of  bigotry,  toleration  for  a  time  appears  to  be  the 
one  excellence  worth  cultivating.  Thirdly,  there  is 
the  power  of  some  dominant  character,  or  some 
great  public  teacher,  who  for  the  time  makes  the 
form  of  goodness  which  he  most  admires  shine  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  the  community  which  has  its  eyes 
fixed  on  him.     So  Dr.  Channing  once  in  Boston,  so 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE     22s) 

Thomas  Carlyle  in  England,  gave  utterance  to  types 
of  character  which,  both  in  their  excellencies  and 
their  limitations,  became  almost  the  fixed  laws  of 
their  people  and  their  times. 

The  peculiar  need  of  a  special  place  in  a  special 
stage  of  development,  the  reaction  from  some  pre- 
vious standard,  and  the  force  of  some  strong  char- 
acter,— these,  I  think,  are  the  elements  which  unite 
to  make  that  strange  thing  which  we  call  the  standard 
of  the  time.  When  it  is  once  made,  how  strange 
and  strong  it  is !  It  is  tyrannical.  For  the  time  it 
seems  to  have  embodied  the  absolute  and  eternal 
goodness.  It  is  intangible,  but  very  real.  The 
strongest  and  the  weakest  feel  it.  He  who  suggests 
that  there  is  much  about  it  which  is  temporary,  and 
which  the  next  generation  will  see  altered,  is  counted 
an  enemy  of  goodness,  a  traitor  to  morality.  This, 
which,  underneath  the  immediate  and  superficial  ex- 
planations of  it,  is  really  the  stage  in  the  great  on- 
ward movement  of  human  life  that  has  been  reached 
at  any  point  of  time,  is  the  phenomenon  which 
every  man  encounters  in  the  present  life  in  which 
he  lives ;  and  it  is  the  sight  which  every  student  of 
history  sets  himself  to  study  as  he  looks  back  into 
the  past.  Just  as,  when  you  look  across  a  stretch 
of  ocean,  you  see  the  different  colors  in  the  water 
which  show  how  various  are  the  degrees  of  depth; 
so,  as  you  look  across  the  centuries,  you  see  how 
every  age  has  its  own  hue,  which  reveals  to  you  what 
virtues  it  most  valued  and  what  vices  it  most  dreaded, 
and  whether  the  standard  of  its  public  and  its  private 
life  were  deep  or  shallow,  high  or  low. 


23©     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

And  now  the  question  is:  what  ought  to  be  the 
relation  of  any  one  man,  living  in  a  particular  age, 
to  this  moral  standard  of  his  age?  He  evidently 
cannot  be  independent  of  it.  He  cannot  live  in  a 
base  age  just  as  he  would  have  lived  in  one  of  those 
finer  and  more  spiritual  ages  which  certainly  occur, 
and  in  which  it  often  seems  as  if  it  would  be  so  very 
easy  to  be  good  and  brave  and  pure.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  certainly  cannot  be  the  slave  and  puppet 
of  his  time,  losing  his  responsibility  in  its  responsi- 
bility, and  counting  it  either  hopeless  or  disloyal  to 
think  of  being  better  than  the  world  he  lives  in. 
What  then?     What  shall  he  do? 

In  the  first  place,  he  who  considers  the  explana- 
tions which  we  gave  of  the  origin  of  the  general 
standard  of  any  time  must  be  struck  by  their  tem- 
porariness.  They  certainly  are  not  absolute  and 
eternal.  They  do  not  pretend  to  be.  The  special 
need  of  a  particular  time,  the  power  of  reaction 
from  something  which  has  already  been,  the  acci- 
dental presence  of  some  powerful  man, — all  these 
concurring  do  not  have  any  necessary  coincidence 
with  the  eternal  standards  which  are  in  the  mind  of 
God.  The  man  who  most  accepts  them  as  his 
present  rule  must  certainly  be  ready  to  say,  "They 
are  not  final.  They  may  all  disappear.  Another 
age  may  come,  must  come,  with  different,  it  may 
be  with  better,  loftier  exactions." 

There  is  freedom  in  a  consciousness  like  that. 
He  who  is  aware  of  the  temporariness  of  the  stand- 
ards under  which  he  lives,  is  at  liberty  to  look  above 
those  standards.     He  may  accept  the  unborn  future, 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE     231 

as  well  as  the  already  embodied  present,  for  his 
home.  He  belongs  not  merely  to  the  temporary 
which  already  is,  and  lies  upon  the  surface,  but  also 
to  the  eternal,  which  is  underneath  now,  and  shall 
come  forth  visibly  in  some  completer  day. 

Again,  we  must  remember  that  our  public  standard 
is  an  average ;  and  the  very  idea  of  average  involves 
the  absence  of  uniformity.  To  make  an  average  you 
must  have  some  parts  lower  and  some  other  parts 
higher  than  the  level  at  which  you  finally  settle. 
The  common  public  standards  of  any  age,  therefore, 
are  the  result  of  the  upward  and  the  downward  forces 
pulling  upon  one  another.  As  there  are  multitudes 
of  degraded  lives,  lives  always  dragging  downward 
the  standard  of  their  time,  lives  worse  than  their 
world  ;  so  there  must  be  other  lives  better  than  their 
world,  always  drawing  the  standard  upward  against 
this  base  resistance.  There  must  be  men  better  than 
their  time,  or  the  time  could  not  be  as  good  as  it  is. 

Let  us  remember  this  when  the  exceptional  and 
shining  lives  seem  to  be  wasted  in  a  hopeless  world. 
Some  man  who  dares  believe  in  the  absolute  truth, 
and  to  anticipate  the  judgment  seat  of  God;  some 
woman  like  a  sunbeam  in  her  purity  and  unworldli- 
ness, — what  shall  we  say  of  them?  They  do  not 
make  the  world  to  be  like  themselves ;  but  there  is 
not  one  of  them  whose  life  does  not  tell  upon  the 
world,  to  keep  it  from  being  completely  what  it 
would  be  if  only  the  brutal  and  false  and  foul  men 
and  women  had  their  way  in  it.  Not  one  of  their 
lives  is  wasted,  though  it  may  end  upon  a  scaffold 
or  a  cross.     Was  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  wasted? 


232     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

Here  too  is  freedom.  If  in  the  very  substance  of 
this  average  itself  are  mingled  purer  forces ;  if  these 
common  standards,  unaspiring  as  they  appear,  can- 
not be  maintained  unless  there  be  some  souls  better 
than  these  standards,  some  uncontent,  aspiring 
souls  forever  tugging  at  the  current  standards  to 
draw  them  up,  or  at  least  to  keep  them  from  falling 
lower; — then  why  should  I  not  be  among  these 
souls?  Here  there  is  surely  room  for  aspiration. 
That  the  world  may  not  be  worse  than  it  is,  I  will 
be  better  than  my  world. 

And  yet,  once  more,  we  always  ought  to  remem- 
ber, when  we  talk  about  the  standards  of  the  world, 
that  we  are  of  necessity  talking  very  loosely.  There 
are  many  worlds  of  many  standards,  all  lying  close 
together  in  this  one,  great,  strange  world  of  ours. 
The  world  is  not  one  evenly  kneaded  uniformity  of 
moral  judgment.  Close  by  the  side  of  the  little 
world  in  which  your  birth  or  business  places  you, 
there  is,  very  likely,  another  world  of  different  stand- 
ards, of  higher  hopes  and  aspirations,  into  which 
world  perhaps  your  life  may  be  tranferred,  by  the 
very  knowledge  of  which  world's  existence  your  life 
may  be  rebuked  and  purified.  That  other  world 
may  or  may  not  be  at  once  distinguishable,  but  it 
exists.  And  the  very  knowledge  of  that  world  gives 
freedom. 

Here  is  the  Christian  Church,  the  never-dying 
testimony  of  the  higher  possibility  in  man.  I  know 
how  ready  we  are  to  say  that  the  Church  shares  the 
moral  fortunes  of  the  world.  I  know  that  there  is 
truth  in  what  we  say,  when  we  declare  that  in  a  base 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE     233 

age  the  Christian  Church  grows  base.  But  all  the 
time  there  is  in  man  a  deeper  consciousness  about 
the  Church  than  that.  The  world  hungers  after, 
and  is  not  satisfied  unless  it  finds,  a  Church  that  is 
better  than  the  times  it  lives  in,  a  Church  which  is  a 
power  of  God,  forever  protesting  against  the  evil  by 
which  it  is  surrounded,  forever  insisting  on  the  lofty 
moral  standards  which  a  base  age  calls  hopeless. 

What  is  a  holy  Church,  unless  she  awes 

The  times  down  from  their  sins  ?     Did  Christ  select 

Such  amiable  times  to  come  and  teach 
Love  to,  and  mercy  ? 

It  is  this  ideal  of  the  Church,  always  demanded, 
never  lost  wholly  out  of  the  hearts  of  men,  some- 
times beheld  in  more  or  less  worthy  realization  in 
this  poor,  blundering,  struggling,  hoping  Church  of 
history,  an  ideal  that  is  sure,  men  believe,  to  come 
and  reveal  itself,  at  last,  —this  it  is  which  has  stood 
for  courage  and  freedom  to  multitudes  of  souls 
which,  without  her  testimony,  would  have  despaired 
of  rising  up  above  the  standards  of  their  age.  For 
the  sake  of  such  souls  everywhere,  in  all  the  ages 
which  are  yet  to  come,  may  Christ  make  His  Church 
more  and  more  what  she  ought  to  be! — may  He 
make  us  who  are  in  His  Church  more  earnest  to 
maintain  her  holiness ! 

Thus  I  have  mentioned,  one  by  one,  some  of  the 
helps  and  provocations  which  offer  themselves  to 
every  man  who  grows  discontented  with  just  accept- 
ing the  standards  of  his  time,  to  every  man  who 
wants  to  be  better  than  his  world.     But  I  know  full 


234     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

well  that  I  have  not  yet  touched  that  which  must 
be,  sooner  or  later,  the  real  strength  and  freedom  of 
all  aspiring  men.  These  things  of  which  I  have 
spoken  are  but  the  opening  of  the  prison  doors. 
The  real  liberty,  the  real  going-forth  of  the  prisoner 
into  freedom,  can  only  come  by  an  intensifying  of 
personal  life.  That  is  the  great,  necessary  thing. 
You  may  convince  a  man  that  the  elements  which 
make  up  the  average  standards  of  the  world  he  lives 
in  are  local  and  temporary,  and  so  have  no  right  to 
hold  him  in  submission.  You  may  make  him  know 
that  some  men  are  all  the  time  outgoing  their  gen- 
eration, and  that  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  be  one  of  those  men.  You  may  point  him  to 
the  worlds  of  higher  life,  the  Church  and  all  its 
meanings,  which  He  close  beside  his  lower  world  all 
the  time.  And  when  you  have  done  this  there  he 
sits !  With  his  prison  doors  wide  open,  there  he  sits 
still !  What  can  make  him  rise  up  upon  his  feet, 
and  go  forth  in  enterprising  goodness  to  be  better 
than  his  world?  Nothing  except  a  personal  call,  a 
personal  responsibility,  a  sense  of  himself  which 
makes  him  for  the  time  forget  his  brethren  and  all 
their  standards,  and,  just  as  if  he  were  the  one  soul 
to  whom  such  a  call  ever  came,  follow  the  voice 
which  summons  him  wherever  it  may  lead. 

Is  there  a  voice  which  can  speak  to  the  souls  of 
men  like  that?  "I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all 
men  unto  me,"  said  Jesus  Christ.  The  whole  soul 
of  the  Christian  Gospel  is  the  enforcement  of  per- 
sonal responsibility,  of  personal  accountability. 
"You    are   God's   child,"    it    says   to    every   soul. 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE     235 

"God  loves  you.  He  has  given  you  your  own  life 
to  live.  He  has  prepared  a  judgment  seat  for  you." 
And  then  there  comes  in  that  wonderful  personal 
appropriation  of  redemption,  which  has  filled  all  the 
history  of  Christianity  and  made  countless  souls  feel 
that  they  had  the  right  to  say,  as  they  looked  upon 
the  Cross  of  Calvary,  "The  Saviour  who  is  dying 
there  is  my  Saviour  and  is  dying  for  me." 

Here  we  get  at  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  whole 
matter.  The  power  of  Christ  is  thoroughly  per- 
sonal. He  fills  the  single  soul  with  its  own  inspira- 
tions, its  own  hopes,  its  own  consciousness  of 
responsibility  and  opportunity.  He  lifts  a  world 
or  an  age  by  lifting  the  individuals  of  which  it  is 
composed.  Every  power  of  Christ  on  the  masses 
is  but  the  consequence  and  aggregate  of  His  power 
on  individuals.  Some  forces  might  try  to  lift  the 
world  as  a  derrick  lifts  a  rock,  with  a  strong,  stiff 
chain  bound  fast  about  the  whole,  so  that  no  par- 
ticle must  lag  behind,  and  no  particle  must  outstrip 
another  particle.  But  the  power  of  Christ  lifts  the 
world,  lifts  society,  as  the  spirit  of  flight  lifts  a  flock 
of  birds  which  fly  together  towards  the  sun.  They 
rise  together,  but  only  because  the  same  upward 
impulse  tells  on  each.  No  doubt  they  fly  the  better 
because  they  fly  in  company ;  but  any  bird  that  can 
outstrip  the  others  may  do  it.  There  is  a  certain 
general  speed  with  which  they  fly ;  but  no  aspiring 
wing  is  bound  to  fly  no  faster.  The  general  stand- 
ard of  speed,  which  is,  no  doubt,  an  inspiration  to 
the  slower,  is  no  restraint  upon  the  bravest  and  the 
strongest  as  he  presses  onward  towards  the  sun. 


236     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

Is  not  that  what  we  want?  I  look  at  Christ  Him- 
self,  and  is  not  that  just  what  I  see?  He  felt  His 
age  and  race  about  Him.  He  was  a  Jew  in  the  time 
of  Herod.  And  yet  how  freely  He  outwent  His  age ! 
And  why?  Because  He  had  to  do  directly  and  most 
intimately  with  God.  He  was  the  Son  of  God  ;  and 
whatever  may  be  the  closeness  with  which  the  chil- 
dren of  a  family  are  bound  to  one  another,  the  first 
relation  of  each  is  to  the  father  of  them  all.  That 
is  what  keeps  the  freedom  and  openness  of  family 
life.  So  Christ  was  free  to  outgo  Judaism,  because 
He  knew  Himself  the  child  of  God. 

What  Christ  was,  He  tried  to  make  His  disciples 
be, — free  by  the  direct  personal  relation  of  each  to 
Himself  and  to  the  Father.  There  was,  no  doubt,  a 
general  average  of  life  and  character  and  knowledge 
in  the  twelve  apostles;  but  John  or  Philip  was  per- 
fectly at  liberty  to  rise  to  higher  knowledge  of  the 
Master,  to  enter  deeper  into  His  Spirit,  to  win  com- 
pleter consecration  to  His  work.  And  the  charter 
and  assurance  of  their  liberty  was  their  Master's 
perpetual  exhortation  to  them  to  follow  Him,  and 
to  be  perfect  even  as  their  Father  in  Heaven  was 
perfect. 

In  that  same  injunction  must  be  the  charter  and 
assurance  of  our  liberty  to  reach  forth  after  the 
highest,  and  to  be  better  than  our  world.  We  live 
here  in  the  midst  of  a  certain  average  of  faith.  The 
men  about  us  believe  so  much,  and  no  more.  Won- 
derful is  the  quickness  and  the  positiveness  with 
which  the  least  belief  beyond  the  average  is  hailed 
as  superstition — over-belief,  as  the  word  seems  to 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE      237 

mean.  And  yet  the  soul  of  every  man  is  claimed 
by  God's  own  revelations  to  that  soul.  The  reser- 
voirs of  truth — God's  world,  God's  Word,  the  hu- 
man soul,  the  human  history,  the  life  and  light  of 
Christ, — they  are  open  like  the  sky  above  the  head 
of  every  man.  Not  unhelped  by  his  brethren's 
faith,  yet  making  every  article  of  faith  his  own  and 
following  it  out  as  God  shall  lead  him  by  a  special 
guidance;  so  every  man  must  press  forward  into 
more  and  more  belief. 

My  dear  friends,  be  sure  that  you  let  no  man,  nor 
all  the  tone  of  all  the  age  you  live  in  —  which  is 
nothing  but  the  colossal  man  of  this  especial  time 
— dominate  over  your  right  and  power  of  believing. 
The  only  hope  of  escape  from  the  contagion  and 
tyranny  of  unbelief  lies  in  this  claiming  of  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  individual  soul,  the  right  and 
privilege  of  the  individual  soul  to  seek  after  truth 
and  to  hold  immediate  converse  with  God,  It  is 
not  by  going  back  to  borrow  the  faith  of  the  twelfth 
century,  or  of  the  second,  that  you  can  resist  the  un- 
belief of  the  nineteenth.  Every  true  man,  while  he 
lives  in  his  century,  must  live  free  from  his  century, 
must  try,  at  least,  to  live  the  timeless  and  eternal 
life  with  Truth,  and  so  to  be  open  to  his  own  unin- 
terrupted, undistorted  voice  of  God  speaking  di- 
rectly to  him.  This  is  the  only  hope  of  escape  either 
from  narrow  skepticism  or  from  narrow  superstition. 

And  as  of  faith,  so  too  of  life  and  conduct.  How 
shall  you  and  I,  rowing  up  and  down  this  little 
land-locked  harbor  of  our  class  or  party  standards, 
gather  strength  and  courage  to  run  up  our  sails  and 


238     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

put  out  into  the  broad  sea  which  lies  beyond?  We 
cannot  do  it  unless  some  voice  comes  out  of  that 
sea,  distinctly  calling  us  to  sail  upon  a  course  that 
leads  to  some  special  harbor  which  we  are  meant 
to  reach,  which  the  God  who  built  our  natures  built 
us  for.  To  undertake  a  life  more  self-sacrificing 
than  your  friends  think  it  best  to  live,  so  that  you 
can  aid  the  poor;  to  take  deliberately  on  your  back 
the  burden  of  some  brother's  life  which  men  think 
worthless,  and  only  fit  just  to  be  left  to  die;  to  de- 
clare, without  uncharitable  judgment  of  your  fellow- 
men, that  some  well-recognized  indulgence  of  society 
is  hurtful  to  your  purity  or  conscientiousness,  and 
so  you  will  have  no  part  in  it ;  to  set  yourself  against 
some  popular  iniquity  or  in  favor  of  some  unpopular 
reform ; — all  of  these  are  acts  which  can  be  done 
quietly,  firmly,  humbly,  only  as  there  comes  to  your 
soul  a  certain  sense  that  you  were  made  by  God  to 
do  them ;  that,  however  it  may  be  for  other  men, 
for  you  God's  word  is  clear,  and  there  is  nothing 
for  you  to  do  but  obey  it.  That  was  the  conviction 
which  came  into  the  hearts  of  the  first  apostles  when 
the  fiery  tongues  of  the  Pentecost  were  still  burning 
over  their  heads.  "Whether  it  be  right  in  the  sight 
of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than  unto  God, 
judge  ye!  "  said  Peter  and  John  to  the  Council  in 
Jerusalem.  They  turned,  you  see,  and  appealed 
directly  to  their  world,  and  said,  "Behold  we  cannot 
live  in  your  standards,  for  God  is  calling  us."  And 
even  the  hard-souled  Council  must  have  felt  in  its 
heart  the  power  of  the  appeal. 

Only  in  this  truth, —  that  the  escape  from  the 


AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE     239 

tyranny  of  local  and  temporary  standards  must  lie 
in  personal  obedience  to  a  call  of  God, — only  here  is 
found  the  safeguard  of  humility.  I  know  full  well 
that  in  what  I  have  said  there  must  have  seemed  to 
lurk  the  peril  of  the  Pharisee.  "We  know  him,"  I 
have  almost  seemed  to  hear  you  say;  "we  know  the 
man  who  sets  out  to  be  better  than  his  world.  We 
know  him  and  we  hate  him !  We  have  had  enough 
of  his  self-righteous  ways.  May  we  be  saved  from 
ever  being  men  like  him  !  "  The  only  way  in  which 
you  can  be  saved  from  being  men  like  him,  and  yet 
not  sink  back  into  the  slavery  of  average  life,  is  by 
daring  to  believe  that  God  meant  something  when 
He  made  you ;  and  that  the  true  humility  and  the 
true  progress  will  be  found  in  struggling  with  all 
your  soul  after  that  Divine  design.  That  is  the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 

And  so  this  is  our  truth !  You  must  go  out  of  the 
merely  temporary  and  local  to  meet  the  absolute 
and  the  eternal.  To  him  who  sits  indoors  it  may 
often  seem  as  if  the  sun  were  gone  out  and  the 
winds  no  longer  blew.  To  him  who  listens  only  to 
what  is  said  by  the  men  about  him,  or  to  the  men 
of  old  time,  it  must  often  seem  as  if  there  were  no 
absolute  righteousness,  no  voice  of  God.  Arise! 
Go  forth  under  the  open  sky ;  God  is  still  there,  and 
the  soul  that  really  listens  must  hear  His  voice,  and 
the  soul  that  hears  His  voice  must  know  that  He  is 
King. 

I  would  not  have  you  think  that  this  truth  is  only 
for  great  men,  with  remarkable  things  to  do  in  the 
world.     It  is  for  all  men.     It  is  for  the  schoolboy  in 


240     AVERAGE  AND  ABSOLUTE  VIRTUE 

his  school,  tempted  to  swear  or  cheat  because  the 
other  boys  do.  It  is  for  the  young  man  or  woman 
in  the  boarding-house,  crowded  upon  by  the  low 
atmosphere  of  gossip  and  frivolity  which  is  hot  and 
heavy  there.  It  is  for  the  shopkeeper  shut  in  by 
the  bad  tricks  and  habits  of  his  trade.  It  is  for  the 
politician,  forever  encountering  the  sneers  of  those 
who  say  that  politics  must  be  corrupt.  It  is  for  the 
men  and  women  of  society ;  for  the  students  and 
the  lawyers  and  the  ministers;  for  the  mechanics 
and  the  laborers ;  for  every  human  creature  who  is 
tempted  to  slight  his  work  and  not  to  do  and  be  his 
best.  To  all  such  comes  the  call,  "  Be  better  than 
your  world !  Break  through  the  slavery  of  your 
class  and  time  and  set.  Enjoy  the  glorious  liberty 
of  the  children  of  God." 

And  then,  what  more?  Nothing  but  this:  Of 
Christ  the  Saviour  and  the  Master  it  is  written  that 
"To  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God."  And  no  won- 
der, then,  that  He  said  of  Himself,  "If  the  Son  shall 
make  you  free,  ye  shall  be  free  indeed."  That  is 
the  whole  history.  Christ  makes  us  know  that  we 
are^  and  so  makes  us  be  the  sons  of  God.  Being 
God's  sons,  we  strike  directly  for  God  and  for  His 
standards.  So  we  are  set  at  liberty  to  use,  but  not 
to  be  bound  by,  the  standards  of  our  class  and  time. 
In  the  great  phrase  of  the  apostle,  we  "live  unto  the 
Lord."  This  is  the  real  redemption  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Into  the  very  richest  heart  of  that 
redemption  may  all  of  us  enter,  and  there  may  we 
find  liberty  and  life. 


XV. 

TRUTH   PASSES  THROUGH   FAITH  INTO 
POWER. 

"  Not  being  mixed  with  faith." — Hebrews  iv.  2. 

There  is  always  a  pathetic  interest,  made  up  of 
sadness  and  hope  together,  in  the  sight  of  any  good 
thing  which  fails  of  power  and  of  its  fullest  life,  be- 
cause it  is  a  fragment  and  does  not  meet  the  other 
part  which  is  needed  to  complete  the  whole.  A 
seed  that  lies  upon  the  rock  and  finds  no  ground ; 
an  instrument  that  stands  complete  in  all  its  mechan- 
ism but  with  no  player's  hand  to  call  its  music  out ; 
a  man  who  might  do  brave  and  useful  things  under 
the  summons  of  a  friend's  enthusiasm,  but  goes 
through  life  alone;  a  nature  with  fine  and  noble 
qualities  that  need  the  complement  of  other  quali- 
ties, which  the  man  lacks,  to  make  a  fruitful  life ;  a 
country  rich  in  certain  elements  of  character,  such 
as  energy,  hopefulness,  self-confidence,  but  wanting 
just  that  profound  conscientiousness,  that  scrupu- 
lous integrity,  which  should  be  the  rudder  to  these 
broad  and  eager  sails;  a  Church  devout  without 
thoughtfulness,  or  liberal  without  deep  convictions, 
— where  would  the  long  list  of  illustrations  end? 

z6 

241 


242  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

Everywhere  the  most  pathetic  sights  are  these  in 
which  possibility  and  failure  meet.  Indeed,  herein 
lies  the  general  pathos  which  belongs  to  the  great 
human  history  as  a  whole,  and  to  each  man's  single 
life.  Not  with  the  quiet  satisfaction  with  which  we 
look  at  inanimate  nature  or  at  the  brutes,  not  with 
the  sublime  delight  with  which  we  think  of  God,  can 
our  thoughts  rest  on  man,  the  meeting-place  of  such 
evident  power  and  such  no  less  evident  deficiency. 

The  sadness  does  not  disappear  but  rather  in- 
creases as  we  lift  up  our  eyes  to  the  men  who  must 
be  held  to  have  succeeded  best.  From  their  height 
of  success  only  a  new  range  of  unfulfilled  possibility 
is  opened.  And  the  hope  never  wholly  dies  out, 
even  for  those  who  fail  the  worst.  We  follow  them 
to  their  graves,  almost  looking  to  see  them  start 
from  the  dead  and  do  the  thing  which  they  have 
always  been  upon  the  brink  of  doing.  We  dare  to 
dream  for  them  of  another  life  when  these  powers, 
which  the  man  has  carried  so  long  powerless,  shall 
be  mixed  with  the  capacity  or  the  motive  which 
they  have  missed,  and  the  life  that  never  has  been 
lived  shall  be  at  last  begun. 

One  of  these  failures  is  described  in  the  words  of 
the  text.  The  whole  passage,  as  it  stands  in  the 
Epistle,  is  this:  "The  word  preached  did  not  profit 
them,  not  being  mixed  with  faith  in  them  that  heard 
it," — the  mixture  of  faith  which  truth  needs  in  order 
that  it  may  become  profitable  power.  I  think  that 
no  one  reads  the  words  and  does  not  feel  his  notion 
of  what  faith  is  enlarge.  Evidently  it  is  something 
more  than  mere  assent,  something  more  than  simple 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  243 

acknowledgment  that  the  truth  is  true.  The  essen- 
tial relations  between  truth  and  the  nature  of  man 
are  evidently  comprehended  in  their  whole  com- 
pleteness. All  that  the  nature  of  man  might  do  to 
truth,  all  the  welcome  that  it  might  extend,  all  the 
cordial  and  manifold  relationships  into  which  it  might 
have  entered  with  the  word  that  was  preached  unto 
it, — all  this  is  in  the  writer's  mind.  It  is  the  failure 
of  all  this  together  that  he  laments.  All  this  is 
summed  up  in  the  faith  which  the  truth  has  not 
found.  Faith,  as  he  talks  about  it  here,  seems  to 
be  simply  the  full  welcome  which  the  human  soul 
can  give  to  anything  with  which  it  has  essential 
and  natural  relationship.  It  will  vary  for  everything 
according  to  that  thing's  nature,  as  the  hand  will 
shape  itself  differently  according  to  the  different 
shapes  of  the  things  it  has  to  grasp.  And  faith  is 
simply  the  soul's  grasp,  a  larger  or  a  smaller  act 
according  to  the  largeness  or  smallness  of  the  ob- 
ject grasped ;  of  one  size  for  a  fact,  of  another  for 
a  friend,  of  another  for  a  principle,  but  always  the 
soul's  grasp,  the  entrance  of  the  soul  into  its  true 
and  healthy  relationship  to  the  object  which  is 
offered  to  it. 

It  is  in  the  fact  that  there  are  such  essential  rela- 
tionships between  man  and  the  things  which  fill  the 
world  about  him  that  the  value  and  beauty  of  his 
existence  lie.  The  application  of  any  object  to  its 
faculty,  the  opening  of  the  faculty  to  its  object, — 
that  is  what  makes  the  richness  of  all  life.  In  the 
open  faculty  the  object  finds  its  true  mixture,  and 
its  higher  life  begins.     You  hold  a  bit  of  sweet  food 


244  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

to  the  eye  and  it  finds  no  welcome  there.  It  is  not 
"mixed  with  faith."  Only  when  it  touches  the 
tongue  it  opens  its  possibilities,  and  becomes,  first, 
pleasure,  and  then,  nourishment.  You  play  sweet 
music  to  the  taste,  and  the  taste  cannot  hear  it.  It 
makes  no  entrance.  It  is  "not  mixed  with  faith." 
For  faith  is  another  word  for  welcome, — the  cordial 
acceptance  of  any  presence  into  the  inmost  chambers 
of  our  human  nature  where  that  particular  presence 
has  a  right  to  go. 

How  easy  it  is  to  carry  this  up  from  the  physical 
structure  to  much  higher  things !  You  bring  a  true, 
rich  friend,  and  set  him  before  a  sordid  man,  a  man 
of  selfish  ambitions,  and  how  powerless  he  is !  He 
makes  no  entrance.  He  is  "not  mixed  with  faith." 
You  take  a  great  motive,  one  that  has  rung  like  a 
bugle  in  the  ears  of  the  noblest  men  that  have  ever 
lived,  and  you  make  it  sound  in  the  ears  of  a  dull 
boy  who  has  no  ambition  to  be  noble,  and  why  is  it 
that  it  falls  dead?  Because  it  is  "not  mixed  with 
faith."  It  finds  no  answering  manhood  in  this  boy 
with  which  it  may  unite  and  make  a  noble  man. 
Truth  and  a  soul  that  is  ready  for  truth  meet  like 
the  fuel  and  the  flame.  They  know  each  other.  It 
is  like  the  Lord's  Parable  of  the  Sower.  The  good 
seed  finds  the  ground  ready,  and  out  of  their  quick 
union  comes  the  plant  that  by  and  by  crowns  itself 
with  the  flower.  The  seed  upon  the  stony  ground 
comes  to  nothing,  because  it  is  "not  mixed  with 
faith." 

At  the  bottom  of  our  whole  conception  of  what 
faith  is,  must  lie  its  personality.     There  are  some 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  245 

things  which  I  can  have  no  faith  in,  while  you  may 
take  them  into  your  very  heart  of  hearts.  There 
are  other  things  which  I  could  not  live  without,  but 
to  which  you  give  no  welcome.  One  loves  to  think 
of  the  quick  combinations  that  are  going  on  all 
around  us.  Everywhere  truths,  objects,  characters, 
are  falling  into  men's  lives,  and,  finding  faith  there, 
are  entering  on  their  own  higher  lives  as  convictions, 
powers,  and  inspirations.  In  one  man  one  truth 
finds  its  waiting  faith,  and  in  another  man  another. 
It  is  the  sublime  prerogative  of  God's  Fatherhood 
that  He  alone  can  ask  for  faith  in  every  man.  Only 
He  can  stand  and  look  over  the  worldful  of  His 
children,  and  cry  to  every  one,  "My  son,  give  me 
thy  heart,"  and  know  that  in  every  heart  there 
ought  to  be  a  welcome  for  Him  to  its  very  inmost 
chambers. 

As  soon  as  we  understand  what  the  faith  is  which 
any  object  or  truth  must  find  and  mix  itself  with 
before  it  can  put  on  its  fullest  life  and  power,  then, 
I  think,  we  are  impressed  with  this, — that  men  are 
always  making  attempts  which  never  can  succeed 
to  give  to  objects  and  truths  a  value  which  in  them- 
selves they  never  can  possess,  which  can  only  come 
to  them  as  they  are  taken  home  by  faith  into  the 
characters  of  men.  We  hear  men  talk  about  the 
progress  of  our  country,  and  by  and  by  we  find  that 
they  mean  the  increase  of  its  wealth,  the  develop- 
ment of  its  resources,  the  opening  of  its  communi- 
cations, the  growth  of  its  commerce.  These  do  not 
make  a  country  great ;  they  are  powerless  until  they 
are  mixed  with  faith,  until  they  give  themselves  to 


246  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

the  reinforcement  of  the  human  qualities  of  which 
any  real  national  life,  like  any  real  personal  life,  is 
made,  and  make  the  nation  more  generous,  more 
upright,  and  more  free.  They  may  do  that.  It  is 
in  the  power  of  a  nation,  as  of  a  man,  to  grow 
greater  by  every  added  dollar  of  its  wealth;  but  a 
dollar  is  powerless  until  it  mixes  itself  with  faith  and 
passes  into  character. 

And  so  of  far  more  spiritual  things  than  dollars. 
You  say,  "How  headlong  my  boy  is!  Let  me 
give  him  a  wise  friend,  and  so  he  shall  get  wis- 
dom." You  say,  "Here  is  my  brother  who  has 
been  frivolous.  Behold,  a  blessed  sorrow  is  gather- 
ing about  him,  and  out  of  the  darkness  he  will 
come  with  a  sober  heart."  You  say,  "This  man 
is  coarse  and  brutish;  let  me  set  him  among  fine 
things,  and  he  will  become  delicate  and  gentle." 
You  say,  "This  selfish  creature  has  not  cared  for  his 
country  in  what  seemed  her  soft  and  easy  days,  but 
let  the  ^orm  come,  let  the  war  burst  out,  or  the 
critical  election,  big  with  disgrace  or  honor,  rise  up 
like  a  sudden  rock  out  of  the  calm  sea,  and  patriot- 
ism will  gather  at  his  heart,  and  set  his  brain  to  lofty 
thoughts,  and  strengthen  his  arm  for  heroic  deeds." 
Forever  the  same  anticipations  from  mere  circum- 
stances !  the  same  trust  in  mere  emergencies,  in 
facts,  events,  and  things ;  and  forever  the  same 
disappointment !  forever  the  same  reiterated  answer 
from  all  experience,  like  the  perpetually  repeated 
answer  that  the  moaning  rocks  give  to  the  querulous 
tide,  which  is  always  creeping  back  to  hear  it  once 
again, — the  answer  that  no  crisis,  no  event,  no  fact. 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  247 

no  person,  is  of  real  value  to  the  sdul  of  any  man, 
unless  it  really  gets  into  that  soul,  compels  or  wins 
its  welcome,  and  passes,  by  the  mixture  of  faith, 
into  character.  So,  and  so  only,  does  a  wise  friend 
make  your  boy  wise,  or  sorrow  make  your  brother 
noble,  or  fine  and  gentle  circumstances  make  the 
coarse  man  fine,  or  the  need  of  his  country  make 
the  selfish  man  a  patriot. 

Now,  all  this  is  peculiarly  true  with  reference  to 
religion.  Think  how  it  runs  through  the  Bible. 
Remember  the  course  of  the  sacred  History  which 
is  a  perpetual  parable  of  that  other  no  less  sacred 
history  which  is  in  the  life  of  every  religious  man. 
The  story  of  the  Bible  is  simply  the  record  of  God, 
the  great  eternal  Circumstance,  the  vast  Surrounding 
that  always  encompasses  the  life  of  man  ;  constantly 
offering  Himself  to  that  life  and  testing  its  capacity 
to  receive  Him,  At  the  beginning  comes  the  mys- 
terious story  of  Genesis.  The  Creator  walks  with 
the  new  Humanity  among  the  trees  of  the  New 
Garden.  But  the  Humanity,  as  yet  unripened  by 
experience,  untrained  by  suffering,  unenlightened 
by  the  discovery  of  its  own  essential  feebleness,  self- 
confident  and  superficial,  cannot  take  the  Divine 
society  into  its  deepest  heart.  Adam  and  Eve — 
the  young  and  untrained  Earth  and  Life — take  God 
into  the  society  of  their  happiness,  but  they  do  not 
claim  Him  in  the  inmost  chambers,  into  the  govern- 
ment of  their  wills  and  the  consolation  of  their 
sorrow. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  Bible  is  the  New  Jerusa- 
lem, and  there  what  have  we?     Man  rich  in  all  the 


248  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

fearful  and  beautiful  experience  of  life;  humanity 
with  all  its  history  of  grief  and  comfort,  of  sin  and 
redemption ;  humanity  mellowed,  softened,  hum- 
bled, deepened  by  all  the  experience  of  the  long, 
slow  day  in  which  the  ages  of  human  history  have 
been  the  creeping  hours.  And  lo!  in  this  beaten 
and  ripened  humanity  the  doors  are  all  wide  open. 
Even  into  the  deepest  chambers  enters  the  ever- 
present  God,  and  finds  in  each  chamber  a  new  faith 
with  which  He  mixes  Himself  and  becomes  the  soul's 
life.  "The  Throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb  shall 
be  in  it,  and  His  servants  shall  serve  Him,  and  His 
name  shall  be  in  their  foreheads."  Between  the 
two  ends  of  the  Bible,  there  is  the  story  of  God's 
perpetual  offer  of  Himself  to  the  soul  of  man,  and 
of  His  entrance  into  it  just  so  far  as  He  finds  faith 
to  welcome  Him.  Noah,  Abraham,  Moses,  David, 
the  Prophets,  John  the  Baptist,  Nicodemus,  John 
the  disciple,  Paul, — each  marks  some  access  of  the 
Divine  Presence  to  our  human  life.  And  each  bears 
witness  how  impossible  it  is  even  for  God  to  enter 
into  a  humanity  that  has  not  faith,  to  enter  any  hu- 
manity farther  than  that  humanity  has  faith  to  take 
His  blessed  Presence  in. 

There  is  indeed  another  truth  which  always  min- 
gles with  this,  and  softens  the  harshness  which 
would  be  in  it  if  it  stood  alone.  That  other  truth 
is  that  every  approach  of  God  to  man  has  a  true 
tendency  to  create  the  faith,  without  which  the  ap- 
proach can  never  become  a  real  entrance.  As  the 
face  of  your  unforgotten  friend,  coming  towards 
you,  reclaims  you  for  himself,  and  has  a  true  power 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  249 

to  make  you  give  that  welcome  to  his  love  which 
still,  at  the  last,  nothing  but  your  own  willing  love 
can  give,  and  without  which  he,  love  you  as  warmly 
as  he  may,  cannot  enter ;  so  the  first  truth  of  religion 
always  must  be  that  there  is  such  an  essential  and 
original  belonging  between  God  and  man,  that  as 
God  comes  to  man  He  makes,  as  far  as  any  power 
outside  man's  own  will  can  make,  the  faith  which 
is  to  be  His  welcome.  If  this  were  not  truth,  life 
would  be  very  dark  and  hope  would  be  a  mockery. 

Yet,  still  the  truth  remains  that  only  into  faith, 
only  into  a  fitness  and  receptivity  of  soul,  can  even 
God  come  with  His  blessed  Presence.  And  if  it  is 
true  of  God,  it  is  true  certainly  of  every  truth  of 
God,  and  of  all  the  forms  of  sacred  influence  which 
His  Presence  takes.  They  cannot  enter  the  real  life 
of  a  man  until  they  are  "mixed  with  faith."  Just 
think  how  this  convicts  of  superficialness  a  very 
large  part  of  our  labor  and  expectation  for  the  ex- 
tension of  religion  and  the  benefit  of  man.  We  put 
confidence  in  our  organizations.  "Let  us  plant  our 
church  in  this  remote  village,"  we  say.  "Let  our 
beloved  services  be  heard  among  those  unfamiliar 
scenes.  Let  our  ministry  be  known  in  the  far  West, 
and  so  men  shall  be  saved."  We  have  not  too 
much  confidence,  but  the  wrong  kind  of  confidence, 
in  the  objective  truth:  "Let  this,  which  I  know 
is  verity,  come  to  this  bad  man's  life,  and  he  must 
turn." 

There  is  all  about  us  this  faith  in  the  efificacy  of 
ideas  over  character.  The  orthodox  man  believes 
that   if  you  could  silence  all  dissent  from  the  old 


250  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

venerated  creed,  the  world  would  shine  with  holi- 
ness. The  unbeliever  thinks  that  if  you  could  tear 
the  old  creeds  out  of  the  belief  of  men,  the  crushed, 
creed-ridden  heart  of  man  would  spring  up  and  en- 
thusiastically claim  its  privilege  of  goodness.  How 
like  it  all  sounds  to  the  cry  which  we  hear  in  the 
Parable,  coming  forth  from  the  stitl  unenlightened 
ruin  of  a  wasted  life:  "Nay,  Father  Abraham,  but 
if  one  went  unto  them  from  the  dead,  they  will  re- 
pent. ' '  Ideas  are  mighty.  There  is  no  real  strength 
in  the  world  that  has  not  an  idea  at  its  heart.  To 
declare  true  ideas,  to  speak  the  truth  to  men,  is  the 
noblest  work  that  any  man  can  covet  or  try  to  do. 
To  attempt  to  gain  power  over  men  which  shall  not 
be  really  the  power  of  an  idea  is  poor,  ignoble  work. 
But  yet  it  is  none  the  less  certain  that  no  man  does 
really  tell  the  truth  to  other  men,  who  does  not  al- 
ways go  about  remembering  that  truth  is  not  profit- 
able till  it  is  mixed  with  faith,  that  the  final  power 
of  acceptance  or  rejection  lies  in  the  soul.  It  is  the 
forgetfulness  of  this  which  has  made  the  useless 
teachers  of  every  kind — the  teachers  from  whom  the 
scholars  have  gone  away  unfed,  the  faithful  but  fruit- 
less ministers,  the  dreary  books,  the  disappointed, 
unsuccessful  reformers. 

I  have  been  talking  thus  far  as  if  a  truth  which 
did  not  meet  with  faith  simply  remained  inoperative. 
"The  word  preached  did  not  profit  them,"  writes 
the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  "not 
being  mixed  with  faith."  But  we  must  go  farther 
than  this.  The  mind  of  man  is  far  too  delicate  and 
sensitive  for  anything  unappropriated,  and  not  made 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  251 

a  part  of  itself,  to  lie  in  it  without  doing  it  harm. 
Everything  that  is  there  must  enter  into  some  re- 
lation with  the  humanity  which  holds  it ;  and  if  the 
relation  be  not  one  of  fellowship  and  help,  it  will 
certainly  be  hostile  and  injurious.  How  universal 
is  this  necessity !  The  person  whom  a  man  has 
studied  and  understood,  but  has  not  learned  to 
sympathize  with  and  love,  becomes  an  irritation, — 
all  the  more  irritating  as  his  life  is  pressed  more 
closely  on  the  unsympathetic  and  unloving  heart. 
His  motives  are  distorted.  His  excellencies  excite 
jealousy,  instead  of  admiration.  His  failings  are 
exaggerated,  and  make  the  observer  glad  instead  of 
Sony. 

And  so  it  is  with  books.  The  book  which  you 
have  studied,  but  whose  heart  you  have  not  taken 
into  your  heart,  makes  you  not  a  wise  man  but  a 
pedant.  And  so  it  is  with  institutions.  The  gov- 
ernment under  which  you  live,  but  with  whose  ideas 
you  are  not  in  loyal  sympathy,  chafes  and  worries 
you,  and  makes  you  often  all  the  more  rebellious  in 
your  heart,  the  more  punctiliously  obedient  you  are 
in  outward  action.  And  so,  especially,  it  is  in  all 
that  pertains  to  religion.  What  is  the  root  and 
source  of  bigotry,  and  of  that  which  goes  with 
bigotry, — partisanship, — the  desire  that  a  belief — 
whether  the  belief  be  true  or  false — should  prosper 
and  prevail,  not  because  it  is  true,  but  because  it  is 
ours? 

Is  not  the  real  reason  of  these  morbid  substitutes 
for  healthy  belief  always  this — that  truth  has  been 
received,  but  not  "mixed  with  faith,"  not  deeply 


252  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

taken  into  the  very  nature  of  the  man  who  has  re- 
ceived it?  Take  any  truth,  the  truth  for  instance 
of  the  Lord's  Incarnation.  Let  it  be  simply  a 
proved  fact  to  a  man,  and  how  easily  he  comes  to 
hate  or  to  pity  the  men  who  do  not  hold  it,  how 
ready  he  is  to  seek  out  and  magnify  the  shades  of 
difference  in  the  statements  which  men  make  of  it 
who  hold  the  great  truth  along  with  him  !  But  let 
that  same  truth  be  "mixed  with  faith,"  let  it  enter 
into  those  depths  of  a  man's  nature  where  it  is 
capable  of  going,  let  it  awaken  in  him  the  deep,  dear 
sense  of  the  unutterable  Love  of  God,  let  it  reveal 
to  him  his  human  dignity,  his  human  responsibility, 
his  human  need,  and  then  how  impossible  it  will  be 
for  him  to  be  a  bigot !  How  all  men,  believers  and 
unbelievers  alike,  will  be  seen  by  him  within  the 
glory  of  his  great  truth !  How  he  will  pity  the  men 
who  do  not  know  it!  How  he  will  welcome  and  re- 
joice in  any  half-knowledge  of  it,  any  guess  that  he 
sees  men  making  at  it,  though  it  be  very  blind  and 
crude !  How  he  will  have  fellowship  with  any  man 
who  really  does  believe  it,  though  the  form  in  which 
that  man  has  conceived  and  stated  it  may  be  differ- 
ent from  his  own !  It  is  possible  for  us  to  believe 
the  same  everlasting  truths  which  the  bigots  and  the 
persecutors  believed,  and  yet  escape  their  bigotry 
and  intolerance.  But  we  must  do  it,  not  by  believ- 
ing less  deeply,  but  by  believing  more  deeply  than 
they  did.  The  path  to  charity  lies  not  away  from 
faith,  but  deep  on  into  the  very  heart  of  faith ; 
for  only  there  true,  reasonable,  permanent  charity 
abides. 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  253 

How  heavily  all  this  pressed  upon  the  heart  of 
Jesus  Christ!  He  sat  with  His  disciples  at  the 
quiet  Passover,  and  His  thoughts  ran  back  over  all 
the  multitudes  to  whom  His  words  had  come,  and 
in  whom  they  had  found  no  faith.  "If  I  had  not 
come  and  spoken  unto  them,"  He  said,  "they  had 
not  had  sin."  He  looked  the  Pharisees  in  the  face 
as  if  He  pitied  them  so  while  He  rebuked  them  that 
He  would  almost,  if  He  could,  have  plucked  away 
again  the  truth  which  He  had  taught  them.  "If  ye 
were  blind,"  He  cried,  "ye  should  have  no  sin." 
How  He  must  look  at  some  of  us!  The  sorrow 
with  which  He  wept  over  Jerusalem  must  be  forever 
newly  wakened  in  His  heart.  He  sees  men  believ- 
ing all  wrong,  because  they  do  not  believe  enough. 
He  sees  us  taking  with  one  part  of  our  nature  what 
was  meant  for  the  whole,  taking  with  our  wills  what 
our  affections  ought  to  take,  taking  with  slavish  fear 
what  we  ought  to  embrace  with  glowing  love.  Can 
we  not  almost  hear  Him  say,  as  if  He  pitied  us  for 
the  very  richness  of  the  truth  which  He  has  offered 
us,  the  very  richness  with  which  He  has  offered  us 
Himself,  the  old  sad  words,  "How  is  it  that  ye  have 
no  faith?  " 

The  whole  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  full  of  emphasis  laid  on  the  value  of  the  soul  and 
its  personal  life.  Two  words  describe  the  work  that 
He  is  always  declaring  that  He  has  come  to  do  for 
men — revelation  and  regeneration, — the  opening  of 
divine  truth  and  power  to  men,  and  the  making  of 
men  fit  for  the  divine  truth  and  power;  truth  for 
men  and  men  for  the  truth.     He  says  to  Nathaniel, 


254  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

"Thou  shalt  see  greater  things  than  these";  He 
says  to  Nicodemus,  "Ye  must  be  born  again";  and 
He  declares  that  He  Himself  is  the  force  by  which 
both  shall  be  accomplished  when  He  cries  in  the 
Temple,  "I  am  come  a  Light  into  the  world,  that  he 
that  believeth  on  me  should  not  abide  in  darkness." 

As  we  read  the  story  of  the  men  who  have  tried 
to  help  the  world,  we  see  the  divine  supremacy  of 
Christ  in  the  proportion  which  these  two  offers, 
these  two  promises, — revelation  and  regeneration, — 
always  held  to  one  another  in  His  mind  and  teaching. 
There  have  been  many  teachers  whose  one  idea  was 
revelation,  and  their  truth  has  passed  away  and  left 
men  unlifted,  unaroused.  There  have  been  other 
teachers  whose  one  idea  was  regeneration,  the  mak- 
ing of  new  men ;  but  they  brought  no  truth  which 
could  at  once  feed  and  fasten  the  character  which 
they  tried  to  inspire.  Jesus  Christ  comes  with  both. 
And  yet  always  the  new  manhood  is  the  great, 
supreme  thing.  Revelation  always  demands  regen- 
eration, and  then  its  whole  work  is  to  complete  it 
and  to  make  it  permanent. 

Ah,  my  dear  friends,  we  have  not  caught  at  all  the 
real  heart  of  the  Saviour  unless  we  hear  perpetually 
in  everything  He  does  and  says  the  beating  of  that 
absorbing  sense  of  the  infinite  importance  of  the 
soul  and  its  condition.  "Keep  thy  heart  with  all 
diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life  "  :  those 
calm  and  philosophic  words  of  Solomon  turn  in  the 
soul  of  Christ  into  an  eager,  vivid,  passionate  anxiety 
over  the  spiritual  readiness  of  the  men  before  whom 
He  stood  with   His  untold  blessings, — "Let  your 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  255 

loins  be  girt  about,  and  your  lights  burning,  and  ye 
yourselves  like  unto  men  that  wait  for  their  Lord. 
Blessed  are  those  servants  whom  the  Lord  when  he 
Cometh  shall  find  watching."  Truth  cannot  feed 
the  soul,  nor  power  strengthen  it,  nor  love  soften 
it,  nor  mercy  save  it,  unless  the  soul  is  ready  to 
welcome  it  and  "mix  it  with  faith." 

It  is  good  for  us,  I  think,  to  believe  that  many 
and  many  a  man  to  whom  the  doctrines  of  Chris- 
tianity are  very  dark,  does  yet  catch  from  the  whole 
aspect  of  Christ,  and  from  all  He  says,  this  great 
and  deep  conviction  of  the  value  of  the  soul,  and  of 
the  infinite  importance  that  it  should  be  kept  pure 
and  true  and  ready.  That  is  the  beginning  of  the 
healthiest  process  of  the  new  life.  To  the  soul  so 
guarded  and  so  open  all  truth  shall  come.  For  be- 
fore the  faith  which  receives  truth  and  turns  it  into 
power,  there  must  come  the  other  faith  which 
knows  that  the  soul  is  made  for  truth  and  waits 
expectant  of  its  coming.  And  when  this  deepest 
and  first  faith  is  really  present,  the  other  sooner  or 
later  cannot  fail  to  come. 

Think  for  a  few  moments  of  the  rich  light  that 
this  truth  on  which  we  have  been  dwelling — the 
truth  of  the  dependence  of  everything  upon  the 
central  soul  of  man  and  its  condition — throws  upon 
two  or  three  subjects  which  are  often  before  our 
minds.  Just  see  how  vast  a  future  it  opens  to 
humanity.  We  think  sometimes  that  we  have  come 
in  sight  of  the  end  of  progress,  that  we  live  where 
we  can  at  least  foresee  an  exhausted  world.  Our 
ships  have  sailed  the  sphere  around.     Our  curiosity 


256  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

has  searched  to  the  roots  of  the  mountains  and 
swept  the  bottoms  of  the  seas.  Men  have  played 
every  role  before  us  which  imagination  and  ambi- 
tion could  suggest.  What  can  there  be  before  the 
ages  which  are  to  come  when  we  are  gone  but  end- 
less reiteration  of  old  things?  Is  not  the  interest  of 
life  almost  used  up  ?  "  But  no !  "  this  truth  declares ; 
"the  interest  of  life  is  not  in  the  things  that  hap- 
pen, but  in  the  men  who  see."  If  man  be  capable 
of  perpetual  renewal  by  ever-increasing  faith,  then 
to  the  ever-new  man  the  old  world  shall  be  forever 
new.  It  will  not  need  strange  things.  The  things 
that  we  call  common,  the  things  that  have  been  long 
familiar,  the  things  which  have  been,  and  have  been 
done,  over  and  over  since  the  world  began,  will 
shine  forever  with  new  light.  There  must  be  a 
limit  to  the  wonders  that  this  world  has  to  show, 
the  stories  that  it  has  to  tell;  but  the  relations 
which  may  exist  between  this  world  and  the  soul  of 
man  ever  growing  in  receptive  faith  are  practically 
without  limit ;  and  so  the  everlasting  interest  of  life, 
the  perpetual  progress  of  humanity,  are  sure. 

Consider  also  what  a  light  this  throws  upon  the 
life  which  many  a  fellow-man  is  living  now  close  by 
our  side.  How  much  richer  than  we  can  begin  to 
know  the  world  must  be  to  our  brother  who  has  a 
faith  which  we  have  not.  According  to  our  faith, 
so  is  the  world  to  each  of  us.  I  dare  to  give  my 
pity  to  some  man  who  seems  to  me  to  live  a  meagre 
life.  How  few  things  happen  in  his  days!  How 
little  light  there  is  in  his  dark  house!  How  dull 
the  voices  are  that  break  his  silence !     But  who  am 


TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER  257 

I  that  I  should  give  him  pity?  Let  me  know  that 
it  is  not  what  he  has  but  what  he  is  that  makes  the 
poverty  or  richness  of  his  Hfe.  It  may  well  be  that, 
while  I  pity  him,  his  deeper  faith  is  seeing  visions 
and  hearing  music  in  familiar  things  of  which  I  have 
no  dream.  The  world  is  more  to  every  true,  un- 
selfish man  when  he  knows  that  his  limited  percep- 
tion is  no  measure  of  its  wealth,  but  that  the  deeper 
souls  are  all  the  time  finding  it  rich  beyond  all  that 
he  has  imagined. 

And  yet  again,  think  of  the  same  truth  as  it  gives 
us  some  light  upon  the  everlasting  life,  the  life  be- 
yond the  grave.  The  Revelation  tells  us  of  golden 
streets  and  gates  of  pearl.  It  tells  us  also  of  beings 
who  shall  walk  in  them  with  a  precious  and  mystic 
name  written  on  their  foreheads.  Let  us  be  sure 
that  the  new  name  in  the  forehead  is  what  makes 
the  reality  of  Heaven  far  more  than  the  gold  under 
the  feet.  The  new  circumstances  shall  be  much, 
but  the  new  man  shall  be  more !  Only  by  knowing 
that  can  we  be  truly  getting  ready  for  Heaven  here. 
We  can  do  nothing  now  to  build  the  streets  and 
gates,  but  by  God's  grace  we  can  do  much,  very 
much,  now,  to  begin  to  become  the  men  and  women 
to  whom  Heaven  shall  one  day  be  possible.  Then 
Heaven,  when  it  comes,  will  not  be  strange.  Only 
a  deepening  of  the  faith,  by  which  we  sought  it, 
shall  receive  and  absorb  and  grow  in  and  by  its  rich- 
ness forever  and  forever. 

Have  you  faith,  my  friends?  Ask  yourselves  in 
the  sight  of  God,  and  pray  to  Him  to  give  it  to  you 
if  you  have  it  not,  and  pray  to  Him  to  increase  it  if 


258  TRUTH  BECOMES  POWER 

you  have  it,  for,  just  as  far  as  you  have  it,  everything 
is  yours, — this  world   and   its  richness,    the  world 
eternal   with  its  promises,   Christ  Jesus  with   His 
measureless  culture  and  His  satisfying  Love! 
May  we  all  grow  in  Faith ! 


XVI. 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN. 

"  For  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit  of 
man  that  is  in  him  ?  even  so  the  things  of  God  knoweth  no  man,  but 
the  Spirit  of  God." — I  Corinthians  ii.  ii. 

This  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  powerful  of  arguments.  It  shows 
the  greatness  of  the  man  who  made  it  and  whose 
mind  it  satisfied.  For  the  quality  of  men  is  shown 
not  so  much  by  the  opinions  which  they  hold  as  by 
the  grounds  upon  which  they  hold  them,  by  the 
arguments  upon  which  those  opinions  rest  in  their 
minds.  Men  may  hold  the  greatest  of  truths  in  a 
feeble  way  and  upon  the  most  unsubstantial  evi- 
dence. Men  may  believe,  for  instance,  in  the  Being 
of  God  because  they  have  been  told  that  it  is  true, 
or  because  they  want  to  believe  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  men  may  believe  the  simplest  and  commonest 
of  truths  on  the  most  solemn  and  majestic  grounds. 
Men  may  believe  in  the  duty  of  neatness,  or  of 
charity,  on  considerations  drawn  from  the  nature  of 
God  and  of  the  universe.  So  it  seems  that  men's 
greatness  is  decided  not  by  the  opinions  which  they 
hold,  but  by  the  kind  of  evidence  on  which,  and  by 
the  kind  of  spirit  in  which,  they  hold  them. 

259 


26o  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

The  subject  of  which  St.  Paul  is  speaking  is  an 
old  one.  The  belief  which  he  is  asserting  is  one 
which  many  men  have  held, — nay,  really  one  which 
all  men  hold  who  think  of  it  at  all.  It  is  the  mys- 
tery of  God,  the  incomprehensibleness  by  man  of 
the  Almighty.  That  is  no  new  thought.  Every 
man  who  has  thought  of  God  has  had  it,  but  men 
have  held  it  in  a  multitude  of  little  ways.  It  has 
seemed  to  many  of  them  to  be  God  wilfully  hiding 
Himself  from  His  children,  eluding  them  and  mock- 
ing them,  a  bewildering,  exasperating  truth.  But 
to  St.  Paul  it  seems  to  rest  upon  the  strongest  and 
deepest  necessities  of  the  very  nature  of  God  and 
man,  and  evidently  it  brings  him  not  trouble,  but 
peace  and  strength. 

What  is  St,  Paul's  argument?  None  but  God  can 
know  God,  he  declares.  It  is  only  by  His  revela- 
tions of  Himself  to  us,  only  by  His  entrance  into  us 
in  one  way  or  another,  only  by  His  Spirit  imparted 
to  us,  that  we  can  come  to  any  understanding  of 
what  He  is  and  how  He  works.  "Yes,"  he  says, 
"this  is  true  of  every  nature.  It  must  be  true.  All 
beings  in  their  essential  life  are  mysteries.  Only 
by  sharing  their  nature  can  any  one  know  them. 
Beings  of  another  kind  can  watch  them,  can  see  how 
they  work,  can  catch  from  their  character  some  in- 
ferences about  their  nature,  but  no  one  can  know 
them  but  themselves.  The  things  of  any  being  only 
the  spirit  of  that  being  knows."  His  words  suggest 
how  such  a  truth  runs  through  the  whole  creation, 
how  every  order  of  brute  life  must  have  some  mutual 
sympathy  and  understanding  among  its  members. 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  261 

which  no  brute  outside  that  order  can  possibly 
share. 

But  where  the  eye  of  St.  Paul's  argument  specially 
fastens  itself  is  upon  man.  "Look,"  he  says,  "what 
man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  but  the  spirit  of 
man  which  is  in  him?  Look,"  he  says,  "man  is  a 
mystery.  Humanity  stands  alone,  and  it  is  only  by 
being  man  that  any  one  can  know  what  manhood  is. 
Other  orders  of  being  may  stand  by  and  gaze, — may 
see  what  man  does,  and  from  his  doings  guess  at 
what  man  is,  but  in  himself  is  still  locked  up  his 
mystery.  No  brute,  no  angel  can  unravel  it.  It 
is  man's  own,  locked ,  up  in  his  own  human  con- 
sciousness. And  then,"  so  runs  the  argument,  "if 
this  be  so,  if  other  beings  cannot  read  us,  what  won- 
der if  we  cannot  read  that  Being  which  is  over  us ! 
'  No  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man  but  the  spirit 
of  man  which  is  in  him.  Even  so  the  things  of  God 
knoweth  no  man,  but  the  Spirit  of  God.'  "  The 
mystery  of  man  justifying  and  illustrating  to  him 
the  mystery  of  God — that  is  St.  Paul's  argument. 

Let  us  look  at  this  illustration  of  St.  Paul  and  see 
if  it  will  not  throw  some  light  for  us  upon  the 
thought  of  God, — see  if  it  will  not  help  us  to  under- 
stand something  of  the  necessary  mysteriousness  of 
His  life,  and  also  of  how  we  may  gradually  enter 
into  that  mystery  and  come  to  know  more  and  more 
of  Him.  The  mystery  of  man  as  it  illustrates  the 
mystery  of  God — that  is  our  subject. 

By  the  mystery  of  man,  then,  in  the  first  place, 
we  may  mean  either  a  Race  Mystery  or  a  Personal 
Mystery.     We  may  be  thinking  either  of  that  gulf 


262  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

which  separates  human  life  from  every  other  kind  of 
life,  and  binds  all  men  together  into  a  sympathy 
which  no  being  who  is  not  man  can  enter;  or  our 
thoughts  may  be  upon  the  way  in  which  each  in- 
dividual man  carries  about  a  secret  life  which  no 
other  man  can  comprehend.  Of  this  last  there  is 
the  most  to  say,  but  let  us  turn  first  to  the  other. 

Think  of  the  race  mystery  of  humanity.  Side  by 
side  with  all  the  lower  races,  all  the  brutes,  through 
many  generations,  there  has  lived  this  humanity, 
having  to  do  with  them,  but,  as  we  often  must  have 
felt,  knowing  almost  nothing  about  them,  not  under- 
standing in  the  least  their  lower  and  imperfect  lives. 
Emerson  says  in  his  essay  on  History:  "I  hold  our 
actual  knowledge  very  cheap.  Hear  the  rats  in  the 
wall,  see  the  lizard  on  the  fence,  the  fungus  under 
foot,  the  lichen  on  the  log.  What  do  I  know  sym- 
pathetically, morally,  of  either  of  these  worlds  of 
life?  As  long  as  the  Caucasian  man,  perhaps  longer, 
these  creatures  have  kept  their  counsel  beside  him, 
and  there  is  no  record  of  any  word  or  sign  that  has 
passed  from  one  to  the  other." 

And  then,  when  we  turn  the  question  the  other 
way,  when  we  ask  not  what  we  know  of  them,  but 
what  they  know  of  us,  we  feel  still  more  the  break 
that  lies  between  us.  We  have  certain  reasoning 
powers  by  which  we  may  at  least  guess  at  something 
of  what  is  going  on  in  the  dull  lives  of  the  lower 
animals;  we  may  see  something  in  them  which  we 
call  "instinct,"  and  try  to  define  it,  but  the  brute 
that  looks  at  man — what  can  he  see?  Only  certain 
habits    and   very    dimly    certain    dispositions.     He 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  263 

knows  how  you  will  act  in  certain  circumstances, 
and  he  has  a  dim  sense  that  you  care  for  him  or 
that  you  hate  him.  He  treats  you  as  he  treats  fire, 
which  he  has  learned  will  burn  him  if  he  walks  into 
it,  and  for  which  he  has  an  affection  because  it  keeps 
him  warm.  There  is  no  understanding  in  him  of 
your  life.  He  does  not  know  you.  He  cannot 
know  you  unless  he  be  man. 

Now  fancy  that  a  brute  should  be  endowed  with 
intelligence  enough  to  think  about  his  relations  to 
this  higher  race.  Then  suppose  that  he  entirely 
ignores  an  incapacity  upon  his  part  to  comprehend 
humanity.  He  thinks  that  he  is  fully  equal  to  the 
task.  He  will  allow  no  mystery  of  human  life. 
Starting  from  himself  he  claims  to  understand  it  all. 
What  is  the  result?  Is  it  not  merely  that  his  man 
becomes  to  him  only  a  more  perfect  brute?  He 
pictures  to  himself  no  qualities  outside  of  the  little 
range  of  his  own  life.  He  leaves  no  margin  for  un- 
discovered qualities.  He  thinks  he  is  entirely  a  fit 
judge  and  critic  of  this  order  of  beings  above  his 
own.  What  shall  we  say?  Has  not  the  dog  or  the 
horse  gone  all  wrong  when  he  has  lost  sight  of  the 
mystery  that  separates  another  kind  of  life  from  his? 
Has  he  not  made  man  a  mere  creature  of  his  own 
crude  fancy?  Is  he  not  robbing  his  life  of  that  which 
it  ought  to  look  up  to  and  respect  and  obey?  And 
may  not  man,  turning  to  rebuke  the  brute's  rash  and 
crude  thinking,  claim  the  dignity  of  his  own  sepa- 
rate, peculiar  life?  "Be  still,  and  know  that  I  am 
Man.  You  cannot  judge  me.  You  cannot  under- 
stand   me.     My  will   and    my   kindliness  you  can 


264  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

discover  from  my  action;  it  is  your  place  to  take 
the  one  with  obedience  and  the  other  with  gratitude, 
but  never  to  forget  the  vast  gulf  that  separates  your 
life  from  mine.  You  cannot  tell  what  plan  directs 
the  will,  what  wisdom  governs  the  kindliness.  Let 
there  be  a  reverent  acknowledgment  of  a  larger  life 
that  must  be  past  the  comprehension  of  every  brute, 
unless  some  day  that  comes  which  never  has  come 
yet,  and  some  brute  crosses  the  line  that  separates 
the  races  and  becomes  a  man." 

Thus  upon  his  distinctive  manhood  man  stands 
and  claims  his  mystery.  "No  other  race  can  under- 
stand me.  No  other  being  can  judge  me.  'Who 
knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit  of  man 
which  is  in  him? '  "  And  is  there,  then,  any  figure, 
any  analogy  here,  that  throws  light  upon  something 
that  is  higher?  St.  Paul  follows  it  on  instantly: 
"Even  so  the  things  of  God  knoweth  no  man  but 
the  Spirit  of  God."  Shall  we  think  of  St.  Paul 
speaking  these  words  as  if  he  were  the  loyal  cham- 
pion of  God  indicating  his  Master's  rights  against 
the  captious  criticism  of  the  men  about  him?  or  shall 
we  think  of  it  as  part  of  the  word  of  God,  and  so 
seem  to  hear  God  Himself  rebuking  the  ignorance 
that  presumes  to  judge  Him? 

From  whatever  lips  they  come,  the  words  are  an 
assertion  that  there  is  in  God  the  same  mystery  of 
nature  that  there  is  in  man ;  that  for  any  being  of 
another  order  than  the  highest  there  is  the  limitation 
which  belongs  to  every  lower  being  watching  and 
studying  a  higher.  Just  as  the  brute  learned  of 
man  how  he  would  act  under  certain  circumstances 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  265 

and  that  he  was  subject  to  certain  emotions;  just  as 
he  learned  man's  habits  and  his  friendliness,  but 
went  all  wrong  the  moment  that  he  thought  he  had 
comprehended  all  his  nature;  so  man  may  learn 
much  of  what  God  will  do,  and  may  gather  a  rich 
and  certain  knowledge  of  God's  love.  But  the  in- 
stant that  he  claims  to  understand  God,  so  that  he 
can  judge  of  Him  and  criticise  His  actions,  he  is  all 
wrong.  He  is  not  understanding  the  Eternal  God ; 
he  is  merely  imagining  a  God.  He  is  not  rising  to 
the  conception  of  the  Almighty,  he  is  dragging  the 
Almighty  down  to  his  conception.  "Be  still,  and 
know  that  I  am  God"; — that  is  the  rebuke  that 
comes  pealing  down  upon  him  in  some  disappoint- 
ment and  confusion  of  his  presumptuous  plans. 
And  by  and  by,  if  he  is  wise  and  teachable,  if  he 
hears  the  rebuke,  if  he  learns  to  follow  God's  will 
and  rest  upon  His  love,  reverently  knowing  that  he 
cannot  comprehend  His  nature,  he  is  saved  from 
the  captious  folly  of  criticising  God,  and  enters  on 
a  higher  life  of  peace. 

But  I  hasten  now  to  say  that  while  all  this  is  true, 
it  does  not  fully  or  satisfactorily  represent  the  rela- 
tion between  God  and  Man.  We  are  not  brutes  be- 
fore Him ;  we  are  His  children.  While  we  are  not 
Divine,  and  so  are  of  a  different  nature  from  Him, 
yet  we  are  capable  of  Divinity,  and  so  are  really  one 
with  Him  in  nature.  Here,  then,  there  is  some- 
thing needed  to  complete  our  truth ;  and  that,  I 
think,  we  shall  find  if  we  turn  from  the  Race  Mys- 
tery to  what  I  called  the  Personal  Mystery  of  Human 
Life. 


266  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

Besides  that  gulf  which  separates  the  human  life 
from  every  other  order  of  existence,  there  is  an  en- 
velope of  mystery  and  separateness  about  every 
single  life.  This  is  a  fact  of  which  we  think  much 
oftener  than  of  the  other.  It  is  continually  forced 
upon  us.  The  very  fact  that  we  have  so  much  in 
common  with  the  person  by  our  side,  reminds  us 
constantly  how  much  there  is  in  each  of  us  that  there 
is  not  in  the  other ;  how,  while  we  both  belong  to 
the  same  race,  each  has  his  own  personal  distinct- 
ness which  the  other  cannot  invade.  You  stand 
with  some  friend  of  yours  before  a  mighty  picture 
or  before  Niagara.  Each  of  you  is  drinking  in  the 
sight,  and  these  two  natures  are  both  being  filled 
with  it.  Both  are  susceptible  to  it,  for  both  are  hu- 
man natures,  and  humanity  is  made  to  drink  in  and 
appropriate  sublimity  and  beauty.  You  both  stand 
in  silence  till,  by  and  by,  you  both  speak.  Each 
says  his  own  word,  which  utters  his  own  emotion, 
his  own  thought ;  and  then  you  see  how,  while  each 
has  drunk  in  the  same  majesty,  each  has  taken  it 
into  a  nature  distinct  and  unintelligible  to  the  other. 

Or  how  is  it  when  you  read  the  stories  of  the 
brightest  or  the  blackest  of  mankind?  We  read  of 
the  martyrs,  of  men  and  women  who  would  suffer 
anything  rather  than  deny  their  faith,  of  missionaries 
who  would  go  half  round  the  globe  to  save  a  soul; 
and  then  we  turn  and  read  the  story  of  the  wretched 
suicide  who  was  ready  to  blow  up  a  shipful  of  un- 
suspecting passengers  for  a  few  miserable  dollars: 
are  they  not  both  of  them  of  our  race?  In  the 
brightness  of  the  one  and  in  the  blackness  of  the 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  267 

other,  is  there  not  something  that  makes  us  say  at 
once,  "Both  these  are  human"? 

But,  personally,  can  we  know  either  of  them? 
Can  we  understand  them?  In  our  moderate,  com- 
fortable life,  moving  along  in  the  middle  range  of 
feeling,  never  exalted  into  any  great  enthusiastic 
goodness  and  never  sinking  into  any  hideous  vice, 
we  cannot  picture  to  ourselves  how  a  man  can  put 
everything  aside  and  walk  up  to  the  stake  for  a  prin- 
ciple, and  calmly  see  the  fire  lighted ;  nor  how  an- 
other man,  off  at  the  very  opposite  pole  of  humanity, 
can  contemplate  with  perfect  coolness  the  horrible 
destruction  of  hundreds  of  his  fellow-creatures  for  a 
little  money.  Both  of  these  beings  are  wrapped  in 
their  own  personal  mystery.  Around  the  one  burns 
the  fire  of  his  glorious  self-devotion.  Around  the 
other  rolls  the  black  stream  of  his  hideous  selfish- 
ness. You  must  be  the  martyr  or  the  monster  your- 
self, before  you  can  know  what  it  is  to  be  either  of 
them. 

So  it  is  always.  When  an  unselfish  man  tries  to 
tell  another  what  the  joy  is  which  he  finds  in  charity ; 
when  the  religious  man  wants  to  describe  the  blessed- 
ness of  Christ  to  some  indifferent  friend ;  what  is  it 
that  stops  the  tongues  that  are  ready  to  speak  out 
to  this  other  life?  Or  even  where  we  cannot  put 
our  finger  upon  any  single  interest  which  is  strong 
in  one  and  not  in  the  other,  and  which  accounts  for 
the  imperfect  sympathy,  still  there  is  this  ultimate 
fact  of  personality.  Around  every  human  being,  as 
around  every  atom,  there  is  a  wrapping  of  separate- 
ness ;  so  that  however  closely  they  touch  each  other 


268  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

they  never  really  mingle.  It  is  a  strange,  impressive 
idea  that,  closely  as  men  have  crowded  each  other 
all  these  ages,  no  man  ever  knew  perfectly  any  man- 
hood but  his  own.  No  man  ever  knew  his  nearest 
friend  so  well  but  that  it  would  be  an  utter  amaze- 
ment to  him  if  he  were  turned  into  that  friend  for 
an  hour.  Come  as  close  to  your  friend  as  you  will, 
learn  as  much  as  you  will  of  how  your  natures  are 
alike,  you  will  surely  come  at  last  to  some  locked 
door,  the  very  citadel  of  his  personality,  which 
you  cannot  enter,  simply  because  you  are  not  he. 
Damon  and  Pythias  divide  at  last.  David  has  some 
things  which  not  even  Jonathan  can  know.  "What 
man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man  save  the  spirit  of 
man  that  is  in  him? " 

About  this  personal  mystery,  the  reserve  of  every 
man's  life, — we  notice  that  it  is  not  deliberate  or  wil- 
ful. As  soon  as  it  becomes  that,  it  is  churlish  and 
conceited.  It  is  not  something  which  a  man  deter- 
mines on.  To  attempt  to  set  up  a  line  within  which 
no  one  shall  come,  the  nearest  limit  by  which  any 
man  shall  approach  our  life, — that  is  folly  and  excites 
only  derision  and  dislike.  Men  soon  look  over  our 
fence  and  see  that  there  is  nothing  in  that  barren 
pasture  which  we  have  fenced  with  so  much  care  to 
make  believe  that  we  have  a  fine  estate. 

But  the  true  nature  needs  no  fences.  It  is  anxious 
to  admit  its  brethren  just  as  far  as  they  can  come. 
It  shuts  no  man  out  by  any  wilfulness.  Only  at 
last  there  comes  a  door  which  no  other  man's  feet 
can  possibly  pass.  There  are  thoughts  which  you 
can  think  and  feelings  which  you,  and  you  alone,  can 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  269 

feel,  shapes  of  the  universal  human  thoughts  and 
feelings  which  are  as  truly  your  own  as  your  presen- 
tation of  the  universal  human  face  belongs  to  you 
and  no  other  man  in  all  the  world,  simply  because 
you  are  you,  and  no  other  man  is  you  anywhere. 
"If  I  were  you,  I  would  do  so  and  so,"  we  lightly 
say  to  one  another ;  but  no  man  can  know  what  he 
would  do  if  he  were  his  brother.  He  cannot  tell 
what  new  forms  of  motive  and  impulse  he  would 
find  in  that  sacred,  secret  room  of  his  brother's  per- 
sonality, where  his  feet  have  never  trodden,  and  can 
never  tread. 

But  just  because  this  personal  mystery  is  not  wil- 
ful but  necessary,  depending  on  the  relations  which 
exist  between  two  characters,  therefore  its  limit  is 
not  fixed.  A  nature  does  not  set  itself  one  limit  for 
all  comers.  Different  people  can  come  to  different 
depths  in  this  life  of  yours,  which  still  keeps  its  in- 
most secret  to  itself.  One  man  stops  at  the  outer- 
most gate,  and  knows  nothing  about  you  but  your 
most  superficial  habits, — the  way  you  walk,  the 
street  you  walk  in,  and  the  shops  at  which  you 
trade.  Another  man,  with  the  key  of  mutual  sym- 
pathy and  understanding,  opens  door  after  door, 
explores  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  things  that  you 
do,  enters  your  heart  and  reads  your  motives.  Now 
this  key  of  mutual  sympathy  and  understanding  is 
what  we  call  your  "spirit."  He  who  has  the  spirit 
as  well  as  the  form  of  your  actions,  he  who  under- 
stands your  spirit  as  well  as  your  habits,  he  may 
enter  in  to  the  depths  of  your  life.  It  is  conceiv- 
able that  two  human  beings  should  have  so  perfectly 


27©  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

each  other's  spirit  that  they  should  perfectly  com- 
prehend each  other's  nature,  and  be  like  one  heart, 
one  being.  That  is  conceivable,  but  it  is  not  realized. 
Always  there  is  some  stoppage  short  of  the  complete 
penetration  of  one  nature  by  another;  and  so  per- 
sonality keeps  its  last,  inmost  mystery  unexplored. 

But  just  as  soon  and  just  as  far  as  one  man  has 
another's  spirit,  he  may  enter  freely  into  that  other's 
life.  Nothing  will  hinder  him.  It  is  wonderful 
how  the  most  jealously  guarded  doors  fly  open  the 
moment  that  a  newcomer  brings  that  key.  There 
is  wilful,  proud  reserve  enough ;  but  the  largest 
reason  why  men  keep  themselves  back  from  one  an- 
other is  that  each  does  not  believe  that  the  other  has 
his  spirit;  that  is,  that  the  other's  conceptions  and 
intentions  of  life  are  the  same  as  his.  The  minute 
he  finds  that  the  other  has,  he  gives  himself  to  that 
man  ungrudgingly.  Look  at  two  new  men  meeting; 
see  how  they  sit  like  two  animals  and  watch  each 
other.  See  how  each  takes  for  granted  that  the 
other  is  only  in  most  superficial  sympathy  with  him, 
and  so  they  talk  about  most  superficial  things.  But 
see,  if  they  have  really  the  same  spirit,  if  the  mean- 
ings of  life,  bright  or  sombre,  are  the  same  to  them, 
how,  as  they  find  it  out,  each  inevitably  and  unhesi- 
tatingly takes  the  other  in ;  and,  blending  like  two 
sunbeams  or  two  clouds,  they  penetrate  each  other's 
inmost  nature. 

This  fact  seems  to  me  to  give  a  simple  and  attrac- 
tive idea  of  a  man's  progress  in  the  knowledge  of 
men  better  and  wiser  than  himself.  As  his  spirit 
expands  and  purifies,  purer  and  larger  people  are 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  271 

always  becoming  intelligible  to  him.  As  he  grows  a 
better  man,  he  sweeps  up  to  where  higher  and  higher 
orders  of  his  fellow-men  are  sitting,  and  he  under- 
stands them  there,  "Now  I  know  what  he  means," 
he  says  of  some  one  who  has  seemed  to  him  to  talk 
foolishness  and  nonsense,  but  whose  spiritual  key  he 
has  now  found  in  his  own  growing  spiritual  life. 

It  is  just  as  true  when  we  sweep  downward.  One 
of  the  most  terrible  things  about  a  sinking  soul  must 
be  the  way  in  which  lower  and  lower  beings  become 
intelligible  to  it.  It  comes  to  understand  vileness 
which  was  once  wholly  incomprehensible.  As  we 
go  up  or  go  down  with  every  new  spirit  that  we 
gain,  some  new  nature  opens  its  mystery  and  shows 
its  meaning  to  us. 

And  now,  with  these  thoughts  of  the  mystery  of 
humanity  clearly  before  us,  let  us  turn  suddenly  and 
try  to  realize  that,  as  St.  Paul  suggests,  all  this  is 
equally  true  about  the  mystery  of  God.  My  brother 
man  hides  his  inner  life  from  me,  not  because  he 
wants  to,  but  because  he  cannot  help  it.  That 
same  is  true  of  God.  He  does  not  set  me — His 
child,  His  servant — to  seek  after  that  which  He  is 
all  the  time  holding  off  out  of  any  chance  of  my 
finding  it.  He  does  not  say,  "Know  me,"  and 
then  draw  the  clouds  about  His  face  and  sit  mocking 
me  behind  them  as  I  seek  and  seek  for  Him  in  vain. 
His  mystery  is  necessary.  It  is  because  He  is  God 
that  He  cannot  make  Himself  plain  to  me  at  once. 
Let  me  know  this  fully,  and  then  the  mystery  that 
envelops  the  Divine  things  no  more  exasperates  or 
depresses  me  than   does  the   mystery  of  my  best 


272  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

friend,  and  I  -am  saved  from  all  the  petty  complain- 
ing which  talks  as  if  God  had  done  me  wrong  by  not 
turning  out  all  the  depths  of  His  life  to  me  at  once. 

And  again,  in  the  mystery  of  humanity  different 
people  come  nearer  to  or  farther  from  the  secret  of 
a  life,  according  as  they  have  more  or  less  of  that 
life's  spirit.  That,  too,  is  true  of  the  mystery  of 
Divinity.  Not  by  any  mere  favoritism,  not  by  a 
fond  and  foolish  arbitrary  choice,  does  God  let  a  few 
favored  children  into  secrets  about  Himself  which 
He  hides  from  the  rest.  The  child  who  has  the 
Father's  Spirit  knows  the  Father. 

And  then  again,  in  the  mystery  of  humanity, 
however  reluctant  a  man  seems,  he  will — we  may 
almost  say  he  must  —  unfold  himself  to  any  one 
who  really  has  his  spirit.  So  (and  when  we  know 
this,  what  cloud  can  possibly  come  between  us  and 
Him?)  God  always  will  give — we  may  almost  venture 
to  say  God  always  must  give — the  knowledge  of 
Himself  to  every  man  as  fast  and  as  far  as  that  man, 
having  His  Spirit,  is  able  to  receive  Him. 

Apply  these  truths  about  God's  mystery  to  the 
two  great  revelations  which  He  has  given  us  of  Him- 
self in  the  Bible  and  in  Christ.  Would  it  not  help 
us  very  much  about  the  Bible  if  we  could  know,  and 
never  could  forget,  that  the  darkness  which  often 
meets  us  there  is  not  wilful  but  necessary?  It  is  not 
a  book  of  puzzles  where  God  has  set  Himself  to  be- 
wilder us  with  contradictory  accounts  and  insoluble 
moral  problems.  Everywhere,  in  History  and  Psalm 
and  Prophecy  and  Gospel,  He  has  told  us  all  that 
was  tellable  to  us  about  Himself.     And  into  this 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  273 

Bible  one  man  will  penetrate  deeper  than  another, 
not  by  any  other  power  than  simply  by  having  more 
of  the  Spirit  of  the  God  whom  it  reveals.  And  this 
Bible  will  enlarge  its  utterances  to  every  soul  just 
as  that  soul  enters  more  and  more  perfectly  into  the 
meaning  and  intention  of  it  all, — into  that  love  for 
holiness  and  truth  which  is  the  Spirit  of  God  from 
which  it  came.  These  are  the  golden  laws,  the 
first  pregnant  axioms  of  true  and  spiritual  Bible 
reading. 

Apply  the  same  to  Christ.  He  is  no  wilful  mys- 
tery. If  He  who  walked  in  the  broad  daylight  did 
not  shine  through  and  through,  transparent  to  the 
proud  Pharisees  and  carnal  Sadducees;  and  if  He 
now  eludes  us  when  we  attempt  to  follow  Him  into 
His  deepest  depths;  it  is  not  that  He  will  not,  but 
that  He  cannot,  show  us  all.  Oh,  it  makes  a  vast 
difference  to  us,  in  looking  at  Him  who  is  so  dear  to 
us,  whether  we  think  of  Him  as  One  who  is  holding 
back  what  He  might  tell  us,  or  as  One  who  is  strug- 
gling to  utter  Himself  to  those  who  are  too  far  from 
Him  to  understand  Him  perfectly.  Does  the  cloud 
come  out  from  the  sun  or  up  from  the  earth? 

Yes ;  Christ  shows  us  all  of  God  that  He  can  show. 
And  He  is  different  to  different  men, — a  hard,  cold, 
barren  study  to  one,  the  mere  agent  of  a  me- 
chanical salvation  to  another,  the  very  Lord  of  the 
Heart,  the  Life  of  Life,  to  another,  according  as 
each  has  more  or  less  of  His  Spirit.  And  He  will 
give  Himself  to  men,  open  deeper  and  deeper  visions 
of  His  life,  just  as  fast  as  they  can  take  Him  in. 
What  a  buoyant,  hopeful  Christian  life  it  makes  if 


274  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

one  believes  all  that !  How  the  souls  who,  gather- 
ing more  and  more  of  Christ's  Spirit,  are  always 
coming  nearer  to  Christ,  seem  like  the  long  proces- 
sion that  David  saw  moving  along  across  the  valleys 
and  the  hills  from  the  far  ends  of  the  country,  and 
always  getting  nearer  to  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem 
till  at  last  they  entered  into  its  very  gates.  "They 
go  from  strength  to  strength ;  every  one  of  them  in 
Zion  appeareth  before  God." 

If  we  should  change  for  a  moment  our  thought  of 
Christ,  we  might  consider  Him  not  as  the  Revealer 
of  God,  but  as  the  Man,  struggling  after  the  com- 
prehension of  His  Father  just  as  all  his  brother  men 
are  doing.  He  is  both.  He  is  the  Revealer  of  God, 
and  the  struggling  Son  of  Man.  And  yet  not 
"struggling";  for,  when  we  think  of  Christ's  hu- 
manity, we  feel  that  we  have  reached  that  which  we 
said  a  little  while  ago  was  conceivable,  but  never 
had  been  perfectly  realized  between  two  human 
lives — so  absolute  a  possession  by  one  of  the  spirit 
of  the  other  that  there  is  no  break  or  hindrance  in 
the  perfect  knowledge.  Jesus  Christ  had  perfectly 
God's  Spirit.  With  that  key  He  opened  doors  be- 
fore which  men  had  always  waited  hopeless,  and 
walked  through  chambers  of  the  Divine  Mystery 
where  no  human  feet  before  had  ever  trodden.  He 
knew  what  was  the  divine  meaning  of  pain,  the 
divine  hate  of  sin,  the  divine  ideal  of  man.  He  had 
perfectly  God's  Spirit,  and  so  He  knew  the  things  of 
God;  and,  taking  us  into  His  life.  He  makes  us 
sharers  of  His  Spirit  and  of  His  knowledge.  As  He 
said  Himself,  "No  man  knoweth  the  Son  but  the 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN  275 

Father,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  will  reveal 
him." 

As  I  look  back  over  the  ground  where  we  have 
walked,  and  then  look  round  upon  our  life,  I  seem 
to  see  the  argument  of  St.  Paul  bursting  forth  every- 
where, out  of  every  association  which  man  has  with 
his  fellow-men.  All  these  intimacies  which  we  have 
with  one  another  become  prophetic  of  a  higher  in- 
timacy, declare  its  possibility,  and  suggest  its  limita- 
tions and  its  laws.  As  we  go  about,  knowing  one 
another,  touching  each  other's  life  in  all  the  satisfy- 
ing and  stimulating  intercourses  of  mind  and  heart, 
there  is  a  voice  which  comes  out  of  the  whole  and 
says  to  us:  "So  you  might  know  God.  Do  not  be 
perfectly  satisfied  with  any  knowledge,  any  friend- 
ship, short  of  His." 

But  out  of  these  same  associations  which  we  have 
with  one  another  come  these  other  voices:  "Be- 
hold !  your  brother  is  a  mystery  to  you.  Do  not 
then  think  or  wish  to  find  God  unmysterious.  Be- 
hold I  he  who  has  most  of  your  brother's  spirit 
knows  him  best.  Do  not  complain,  then,  if  one 
who  has  more  of  God's  Spirit  than  you  have,  who  is 
humbler,  truer,  purer,  manlier  than  you  are,  knows 
Him  as  you  do  not,  sees  Him  as  you  fail  to  see 
Him.  But  behold !  as  soon  as  you  are  fit  to  know 
your  brother,  he  cannot  help  showing  himself  to 
you.  By  that  right  of  fitness  you  enter  in  and  com- 
prehend him.  Be  ambitious,  then.  As  fast  as  you 
can  contain  more  knowledge  of  God,  it  shall  be 
given  to  you.     The  'pure  in  heart'  shall  certainly 


276  THE  MYSTERY  OF  MAN 

'see  God.'  As  impossible  as  it  is  for  the  impure 
to  see  Him,  so  impossible  is  it  for  the  pure  not  to 
see  Him." 

Whatever  gives  us  more  of  God's  Spirit  makes  a 
new  knowledge  of  Him  possible.  Here  is  the  meet- 
ing ground  of  goodness  and  knowledge.  When  we 
are  in  heaven  and  revelling  in  the  absolute,  unhin- 
dered vision  of  Divinity,  seeing  God  face  to  face,  we 
shall  look  back  to  some  experience  of  this  life, — 
perhaps  paltry,  perhaps  painful, — some  time  when 
God  broke  our  pride  and  won  our  hearts  and  gave 
us  His  Spirit, — and  we  shall  see  that  in  that  experi- 
ence was  really  the  openiing  of  the  mystery  of  God 
for  us,  the  beginning  of  the  endless  knowledge  of 
eternity.  Oh,  if  we  really  understood  that  to  know 
God  is  the  only  true  end  of  life,  we  should  be  look- 
ing into  every  experience  to  see  if  He  were  not  trying 
there  to  give  us  a  little  more  of  His  Spirit,  and  so  to 
make  possible  a  little  deeper  revelation  of  Himself. 


XVII. 
THE    ENDLESS   CONFLICT. 

"  And  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  be- 
tween thy  seed  and  her  seed.  It  shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou 
shalt  bruise  his  heel." — Genesis  iii.  15. 

The  story  of  how  the  world  began  to  sin  must 
always  have  profoundest  interest  for  every  man, 
who,  while  he  cannot  remember  the  beginning  of 
his  own  sinning,  has  always  present  with  him  the 
thought  of  what  a  dreadful  difference  sin  has  made 
in  his  own  life.  In  the  story  of  Genesis,  this  verse 
which  I  have  read  stands  in  a  most  critical  and 
touching  place.  Sin  has  come.  Disobedience  is  in 
the  world.  Now,  what  will  it  lead  to?  What  sort 
of  future  now  is  possible?  A  hush  and  pause  almost 
seem  to  fall  upon  the  history,  as  when  some  bold, 
strong  voice  has  spoken  out  a  word,  and  all  the 
world  seems  listening  to  hear  in  what  form  the  echo 
will  come  back  from  the  hillside.  Adam  and  Eve 
have  sinned.  The  man  and  woman  are  no  longer 
righteousness  and  purity.  Disobedience  has  come 
in.  And  as  they  stand,  awestruck  and  anxious, 
God's  word  comes  to  them,  and  they  hear  what 
the  issue  and  consequences  are  to  be.  It  is  all  in 
these  words  which  God  speaks  to  the  serpent  who 

277 


278  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

represents  the  evil  power  of  their  sin  :  "I  will  put  en- 
mity between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  between  thy 
seed  and  her  seed.  It  shalt  bruise  thy  head  and 
thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel, ' '  In  these  words  the  pro- 
gramme of  humanity  is  told.  Man  is  to  be  in  ever- 
lasting conflict  with  his  sin.  His  sin  is  going  to 
wound  him  sorely.  But  ultimately  he  is  going  to 
conquer  his  sin  and  kill  it. 

And  is  it  not  true  that,  in  every  sincere  and 
earnest  life,  there  comes  a  time  which  answers  to 
that  critical  moment  in  the  world's  history?  It  is 
the  time  in  which  a  man  finds  out  his  sin,  finds  that 
the  problem  of  his  life  is  complicated  with  the  fact 
of  moral  evil.  Innocence  is  gone,  and  lies  behind 
him  forever.  He  has  sinned.  He  is  a  sinner. 
What  is  to  come  of  it?  Oh,  what  a  hush  and  a  sus- 
pense falls  on  a  life  at  that  discovery !  The  wanton 
act  of  sin  has  evidently  started  long  trains  of  conse- 
quences, so  very  much  longer  than  the  sinner  knew. 
He  listens  for  the  remote  reverberations  of  his 
wickedness ;  and  to  him  there  comes  really  the  same 
word  of  God:  "I  will  put  enmity  between  you  and 
your  sin.  It  shall  bruise  your  heel;  but  you  shall 
bruise  its  head."  This  is  the  prospect  that  opens 
before  the  man  waiting  to  know  what  will  become 
of  him  now  that  he  has  sinned, — perpetual  conflict 
with  his  sin,  cruel  wounds  and  pain  and  hindrance 
inflicted  by  his  sin  on  him,  and  ultimate  triumph 
over  his  sin  by  the  grace  of  God,  if  he  will  have  it. 

If  I  am  right,  and  the  words  which  God  spoke  in 
Genesis,  when  the  new  world  lay  overshadowed  by 
the  first  sin,  do  really  tell  the  story  of  your  life  and 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  279 

mine  to-day ;  then,  for  one  moment  stop  and  think 
how  wonderful  it  is.  Here  is  the  story  of  what  you 
and  I  are,  and  of  what  is  to  happen  to  us  to-day, 
written  away  back  so  many  centuries  ago  that  the 
imagination  aches  as  it  struggles  on  in  search  of  that 
far-off  time.  How  persistent  human  character  must 
be !  How  the  lot  of  the  individual  is  the  lot  of  the 
race  in  miniature !  How  persistent  sin  is  I  What  is 
this  wondrous  Book  which  so  contains  the  words  of 
God,  which  prove  themselves  His  words  by  being 
eternal  and  all-reaching  in  their  truth,  as  He  is? 

Let  us  consider  this  verse  in  detail,  and  see  how 
truly  it  tells  the  tale  of  human  life,  and  how  nobly 
it  tells  it,  and  in  a  way  that  is  full  of  encouragement. 
I  think  it  ought  to  bring  peace  and  strength  to  us, 
partly  from  what  it  has  specifically  to  say  to  us,  and 
partly  from  the  very  fact  that  to  find  our  story 
told  so  far  off  and  so  long  ago  is  itself  strengthen- 
ing. It  makes  us  know  that  we  are  understood  of 
God. 

Take  first  the  fact  of  the  everlasting  conflict  be- 
tween man  and  sin.  "I  will  put  enmity  between 
thee  and  the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her 
seed,"  God  says  to  Satan.  That  enmity  between 
man  and  sin  has  been  the  great  impressive  truth  of 
human  history.  Mankind  has  never  been  reconciled 
with  sin,  never  come  to  have  such  an  understanding 
with  it  that  the  race  everywhere  has  settled  down 
and  made  up  its  mind  to  being  wicked,  and  asked 
nothing  better,  and  been  at  peace.  That  is  the 
greatest  fact  by  far,  the  deepest  fact,  the  most 
pervasive  fact  in   all   the   world.     Conscience,  the 


28o  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

restlessness  that  comes  of  self-reproach,  the  discon- 
tent that  will  not  let  the  world  be  at  peace  with 
wong-doing — it  runs  everywhere.  No  book  of  the 
remotest  times,  no  country  of  the  most  isolated  seas, 
no  man  of  strongest  character,  no  crisis  of  history 
so  exceptional,  but  that  in  them  all  you  find  man 
out  of  peace  because  he  is  in  sin,  unable  to  reconcile 
himself  with  living  wrong — the  enmity  between  the 
seed  of  the  woman  and  the  seed  of  the  serpent.  It 
is  the  great  fact  of  human  existence. 

And  is  it  not  a  blessed  fact?  Think  how  different 
it  would  all  have  been  if  this  fact  had  not  been  true 
from  the  beginning,  if  man  had  been  able  to  settle 
comfortably  into  sin  and  be  content.  Men  read  it  as 
a  curse,  this  first  declaration  of  God  in  Genesis,  after 
the  fall.  Is  it  not  rather  a  blessing?  Man  had  met 
Satan.  Then  God  said,  "Since  you  have  met  him, 
the  only  thing  which  I  can  now  do  for  you,  the  only 
salvation  that  I  can  give  you,  is  that  you  never  shall 
have  peace  with  one  another.  You  may  submit  to 
serve  him,  but  the  instinct  of  rebellion  shall  never 
die  out  in  your  heart."  It  was  the  only  salvation 
left.  It  is  the  only  salvation  left  now  when  a  man 
has  begun  to  sin,  that  God  should  perpetually  for- 
bid him  to  be  at  peace  in  sinning.  It  is  what  has 
saved  earth  from  becoming  hell  long  ago  —  this 
blessed  decree  of  God  that  however  man  and  sin 
might  live  together,  there  should  always  be  enmity 
between  them,  they  should  be  natural  foes  forever. 
No  man  has  ever  yet  been  bold  enough,  even  in  any 
mad  dream  of  poetry,  to  picture  the  reconciliation 
of  the  seed  of  the  serpent  and  the  seed  of  the  wo- 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  281 

man,  man's  perfect  satisfaction  in  sin,  as  the  consum- 
mation and  perfect  close  of  human  history. 

This  enmity  consists,  like  every  genuine  enmity, 
in  two  parts,  on  two  sides.  Each  party  hates  the 
other  party.  The  parties  are  sin  and  man.  In  the 
first  place,  then,  sin  hates  man.  The  proof  of  that 
is  the  harm  that  sin  does  man,  a  harm  that  men  are 
always  coming  to  discover  in  deeper  and  deeper 
symptoms  of  it,  and  of  which  even  the  men  who 
cling  most  obstinately  to  its  service  are  aware.  It 
would  be  a  strange  question  what  attitude  man 
would  be  able  to  preserve  towards  sin,  if,  conscious 
of  its  essential  nature  and  hating  it  because  of  that, 
it  still  did  really  seem  to  him  as  if  sin  were  a  benefi- 
cent and  helpful  power,  as  if  it  were  the  giver  of  true 
happiness  and  genuine  peace.  There  would  be  a 
horrible  contradiction  between  what  man  saw  and 
what  man  knew.  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the 
sight  did  not  ultimately  triumph  over  the  know- 
ledge and  man  learn  to  love  the  sin  that  loved  him 
so.  But  we  are  spared  all  that.  As  soon  as  we  get 
in  the  least  below  the  surface  of  our  life,  comes  the 
conviction  even  to  the  wilful  sinner  that  his  sin  is 
his  enemy.  Do  you  think  he  does  not  know  it,  the 
man  who,  every  day  while  he  sins,  feels  the  jewels 
plucked  one  by  one  out  of  his  crown,  and  the  stain 
sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  very  substance 
of  his  soul?  Do  not  you  yourself  know  it  when  you 
do  a  wrong  act,  and  almost  hear  the  power  of  evil 
laugh  as  he  drags  you  back  one  hard  step  farther 
from  your  heaven? 

And  if  sin  hates  man,  man  hates  sin.     Is  that 


282  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

true?  I  do  think  that  the  glory  of  the  Bible  is  that 
it  is  full  of  the  idea  that  the  essential  humanity,  man 
as  God  made  him,  man  "pure  in  heart,"  man  as  the 
child  of  God,  does  not  love  sin,  but  hates  it.  With 
all  the  intensity  with  which  it  asserts  man's  perverse 
clinging  to  sin,  it  implies,  it  declares  everywhere, 
that  that  clinging  to  sin  is  diseased ;  that  the  true 
healthy  manhood  which  God  first  made,  and  which 
Christ  is  trying  to  restore,  shrinks  from  it  and 
loathes  it.  Of  that  manhood  we  every  now  and 
then  catch  glimpses  in  the  vilest  men,  something 
which  by  its  look  bears  witness  to  us  that  it  is  the 
truest  part  of  them,  which  has  still  left  in  it  some- 
thing of  that  antagonism  to  sin  which  is  the  life  of 
the  holy  God  they  sprang  from. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  essential  enmity  between  the 
human  heart  and  sin.  They  fight  with  one  another, 
and  they  will  always  fight.  But  there  is  a  more 
special  meaning  in  our  verse.  The  promise  has 
always  been  held  to  refer,  and  no  doubt  does  refer, 
to  Christ.  The  "seed  of  the  woman"  is  not  merely 
man  in  general.  It  is  the  Son  of  man,  who  in  the 
fulness  of  time  came  for  the  redemption  of  human- 
ity. And  when  we  turn  to  Him  whose  life  gives 
the  Bible  its  unity,  who  fulfils  in  the  New  Testament 
what  is  written  in  the  Old,  how  clearly  the  truth  of 
the  words  comes  out.  For  the  fact  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  is  the  enmity  between  Him  and  sin.  Sin 
hated  Him.  Open  your  New  Testament  and  read 
the  story  of  how  He  suffered.  Think  what  came  to 
Him  through  all  those  three  and  thirty  years.  Think 
of  the  poverty  and  misery  of  His  birth,  the  home* 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  283 

lessness,  the  exile,  the  insults — but  I  need  not  tell 
you  the  story  which  has  become  the  central  story 
of  history.  It  was  mainly  woe,  pain,  and  privation 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  And  that  would 
be  utterly  insignificant  if  it  meant  nothing  beyond 
itself,  if  His  sufferings  had  been  nothing  but  what 
you  and  I  make  out  our  sufferings  to  be — the  casual 
hitting  of  our  lives  against  some  point  of  difficulty, 
some  sharp  rock  of  trouble.  They  would  have  had 
no  deep  meaning  then.  We  could  have  read  them 
with  a  sigh  of  pity,  and  dismissed  them  with  an  easy 
tear.  But  how  different  it  is!  Who  does  not  feel 
it,  the  stress  and  vehemence  with  which  trouble 
attacks  the  life  of  Christ?  It  does  not  merely  hap- 
pen to  Him;  it  is  flung  against  Him  with  a  violence 
that  is  nothing  else  than  personal. 

I  think  that  we  have  all  sometimes  found  our- 
selves a  little  puzzled  to  explain  the  distinctiveness 
and  peculiar  character  which  we  yet  clearly  feel  to 
be  in  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  seemed  as 
if  we  might  catalogue  the  pains  of  many  another 
man,  and  find  them  equal  to  His.  Even  to  the  last 
agony  of  the  Crucifixion,  there  were  men  who  had 
undergone  every  physical  pain  He  underwent.  And 
yet  His  sufferings  impressed  us  as  no  others  did. 
This  Cross  was  the  Cross  of  the  world. 

The  secret  lies  in  the  vehemence  with  which  the 
sin  that  persecutes  Him  seems  to  hate  Him.  That 
makes  at  once  the  inevitableness  and  the  nobility  of 
His  suffering.  Do  you  remember  how  He  Himself 
asks  the  disciples  upon  the  road  to  Emmaus,  '  *  Ought 
not  Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things,  and  to  enter 


284  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

into  His  glory?"  Those  words  are  wonderful,  as 
they  come  from  Him,  because  they  declare  such  a 
deep,  essential,  inevitable  enmity  between  His  own 
holy  manhood  and  the  sin  of  the  world.  When  they 
come  into  conflict,  His  manhood  must  be  bruised. 
It  was  the  noblest  proof  of  His  absolute  holiness 
that  sin  so  hated  Him.  He  took  from  its  hos- 
tility the  proof  of  His  perfectness,  and  so  of  His 
glory. 

Can  we  not  understand  this?  Shape  in  your  own 
mind  a  miniature  picture  of  it.  Image  your  dearest 
and  purest  friend,  the  loftiest  soul  you  know,  to  be 
cast  headlong  into  the  midst  of  the  most  vile  and 
vicious  company.  You  go  the  next  day  and  listen, 
like  Darius  at  the  mouth  of  Daniel's  den,  to  hear 
what  the  result  has  been.  You  expect  that  your 
trusted  friend's  soul  has  escaped  corruption.  Do 
you  expect  it  also  to  have  escaped  pain?  Would 
you  not  even  be  disappointed  and  shocked  if  you 
found  that  he  had  escaped  pain,  and  were  wholly 
easy  and  untroubled?  Do  you  not  feel  that,  in  the 
tokens  which  you  see  of  how  he  has  suffered  written 
on  his  face,  you  are  reading  really  the  proof-marks 
of  his  nobleness?  If  you  are  not  equal  to  under- 
standing that  and  begin  to  express  to  him  your  pity 
for  his  pain,  does  he  not  look  up  at  you  and,  almost 
echoing  the  words  of  Jesus,  say,  "Ought  I  not  to 
have  suffered  these  things,  and  to  enter  into  my 
glory.  How  could  I  have  helped  suffering  them, 
without  being  wholly  inglorious  and  base? " 

Oh,  when  you  send  your  boy  to  college  or  into 
the  world,  remember  that,  and  do  not  ask  for  him  a 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  285 

wholly  easy  life,  no  obstacles,  a  cordial,  kindly  re- 
ception from  everybody.  Do  not  expect  to  see  him 
free  from  anxious  doubts  and  troublesome  experi- 
ences of  soul,  and  cruel  jarrings  of  his  life  against 
the  institutions  and  the  men  whom  he  finds  in  the 
world.  It  would  be  very  strange  if  they  did  not 
come  to  him,  if  he  is  genuinely  good  and  pure. 
"Marvel  not,"  said  Jesus  Christ,  to  His  disciples, 
"if  the  world  hate  you;  ye  know  that  it  hated  me 
before  it  hated  you."  He  takes  the  enmity  for 
granted  as  a  first  fact.  He  being  what  He  is,  no 
other  reception  is  conceivable  by  Him.  If  we  try 
to  conceive  of  any  other,  and  set  our  Christ  a  wel- 
come and  honored  guest  in  the  midst  of  men's  wick- 
edness, then  when  we  look  round  at  Him  whom  we 
have  set  there,  He  is  our  Christ  no  longer.  We  do 
not  know  how  precious  is  every  pang  of  that  pain 
which  the  Redeemer  suffered,  if  it  can  only  bear  us 
witness,  as  we  look  at  it,  of  how  sin  hated  Him, — of 
the  essential  enmity  between  the  seed  of  the  serpent 
and  the  seed  of  the  woman. 

And  then  add  the  other  thought  of  how  He  hated 
sin,  how  he  hated  it  for  itself,  and  the  impression  is 
complete.  I  think  that  anybody  who  hears  Christ 
speak,  whether  in  rebuke  or  pity,  to  any  poor  crea- 
ture who  is  in  the  power  of  sin,  gets  this  idea — that 
He  hated  sin  not  merely  for  its  consequences,  for 
the  ruin  which  it  works,  as  we  do.  He  did  that  as 
we  do  not  begin  to  do  it,  but  He  hated  it  also  with 
an  intuitive  and  native  hatred  of  the  thing  itself, 
such  as  is  very  rare  in  any  strong  degree  with  us. 
Put  these  together,  Christ's  hatred  of  sin  and  sin's 


286  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

hatred  of  Christ ;  see  them  in  the  long  and  weary 
struggle,  of  which  the  Temptation  in  the  wilderness 
was  only  the  picturesque  dramatic  utterance, — see 
this,  and  then  you  have  seen  how,  upon  the  crown- 
ing heights  of  human  history,  that  was  accomplished 
which  was  promised  upon  its  very  earliest  verge : 
"I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman, 
and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed." 

And  now,  if  we  have  thoroughly  set  in  our  minds 
this  fact  of  the  world's  history — the  hatred  of  Christ 
and  sin, —  the  question  will  come:  What  is  the 
meaning  of  that  fact  to  us?  What  does  it  signify  to 
us  that  the  Son  of  man  had,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  His  life,  a  constant  fight  with  sin?  And 
we  answer:  It  must  be  first  of  all  a  representation 
of  our  own  lives.  It  must  open  and  expound  our 
own  lives  to  us.  Is  not  this  a  great  meaning,  almost 
a  worthy  meaning  of  the  Incarnation,  even  if  there 
were  no  other?  For  to  understand  our  condition  is 
the  first  step  to  the  mastery  of  our  condition.  To 
understand  our  life  is  the  first  step  towards  the  living 
of  our  life.  So  when  some  poor  soul  is  bewildered 
with  the  endless  obstacles  it  meets ;  or  some  brave 
man,  fighting  against  wickedness,  conceives,  perhaps 
out  of  the  very  pleasure  which  he  finds  himself  tak- 
ing in  the  strife,  a  misgiving  lest  this  endless  fight 
be  wrong; — to  both  of  them  there  comes  this  fact, 
that  the  Man  who  was  most  man  lived  a  life  of  ob- 
stacle and  struggle,  just  as  they  are  living.  Down 
from  Jerusalem  there  streams  the  light  that  makes 
their  careers  intelligible.  On  the  light  there  comes 
a  voice   speaking  the  words:    "Marvel   not  if  the 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  287 

world  hate  you ;  ye  know  that  it  hated  me  before  it 
hated  you." 

So  Christ's  enmity  to  Satan  is  representative  of 
ours.  But  if  really  representative,  it  must  be  some- 
thing more  than  representative.  That,  I  think,  is 
always  true.  He  who  sets  forth  distinctly  the  char- 
acter of  a  group  or  of  a  race  of  men,  thereby  changes, 
clarifies,  establishes,  that  character.  Whenever  the 
nature  and  destiny  of  man  have  found  a  supreme 
embodiment  in  some  grand  specimen  of  human  life, 
he  has  done  more  than  simply  show  men  what  they 
were;  he  has  opened  before  them  new  regions,  new 
things  to  be.  When  David  stands  out  from  the  host 
of  the  Hebrews,  a  stripling  strong  in  the  strength  of 
God,  and,  smiting  Goliah  with  the  stone  out  of  the 
brook,  shows  to  his  countrymen  how  strong  they 
are  with  such  a  God  to  trust  in,  he  really  works  a 
change  in  them.  Their  cowardice  is  turned  into 
bravery,  and  they  arise  and  shout  and  pursue  the 
Philistines. 

And  so  let  us  not  undervalue  the  blessing  which 
would  come  to  us  if  Jesus  Christ  were  simply  one 
of  us,  setting  forth  with  marvellous  vividness  the 
universal  conflict  of  the  world,  the  perpetual  strife 
of  man  with  evil.  Surely  that  strife  becomes  a 
different  thing  for  each  of  us,  when  out  of  his  own 
little  skirmish  in  some  corner  of  the  field,  he  looks 
up  and  sees  the  Man  of  men  doing  just  the  same 
work  on  the  hilltop  where  the  battle  rages  thickest. 
The  schoolboy  tempted  to  tell  a  lie,  the  man  fight- 
ing with  his  lusts,  the  soldier  struggling  with 
cowardice,  the  statesman  with  corruption,  the  poor 


288  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

creature  fretted  by  the  thousand  little  pin-pricks  of 
a  hostile  world, — they  all  find  the  dignity  of  their 
several  battles  asserted,  find  that  they  are  not  un- 
natural but  natural,  find  that  they  are  not  in  them- 
selves wicked  but  glorious,  when  they  see  that  the 
Highest,  entering  into  their  lot,  manifested  the 
eternal  enmity  between  the  seed  of  the  serpent  and 
our  common  humanity  at  its  fiercest  and  bitterest. 

But  yet  this  is  not  the  full  meaning  of  the  battle 
of  Jesus  Christ  with  sin.  We  know  it  is  not.  He 
was  like  us.  He  was.  He  is,  eternally  our  repre- 
sentative. We  have  a  right  to  all  the  strength  and 
comfort,  to  all  the  new  aspect  which  is  given  to  the 
battle  of  our  life  by  the  firm  assurance  of  that.  But, 
along  with  His  true  likeness  to  us.  He  was  some- 
thing unspeakably  different  from  what  we  are. 
When  He  fought  with  sin  and  overcame  the  world's 
pain  by  undergoing  it,  He  not  merely  left  all  other 
fighters  stronger  because  He  was  human,  and  there- 
fore their  Brother;  He  left  sin  weaker  because  He 
was  divine,  and  therefore  its  Master. 

Our  Christian  faith  is  this :  that  the  struggle  of 
Christ  with  sin  was  more  than  one  event  in  the  long 
fight  of  humanity  with  sin,  however  splendid  that 
event  might  be.  It  was  the  consummation  and  es- 
sential completion  of  the  struggle.  It  was  the  vic- 
tory. It  was  the  King  coming  down  into  the  battle 
to  finish  it,  to  give  the  blow  that  should  assure 
its  end.  The  struggle  still  goes  on,  each  soldier 
struggles  still ;  but  each  struggles  in  a  strife  already 
won,  and  lays  hold  of  a  victory  already  certain.  Do 
we  understand  that  truth, — how  great,  how  deep, 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  289 

how  glorious  it  is?  Let  us  know  the  Life  of  Christ 
more  deeply.  Let  us  read  it  and  meditate  upon  it, 
and  let  it  freely  in  to  show  its  power  upon  our  lives; 
and  then,  when  we  have  laid  hold  of  His  Divinity, 
it  will  seem  simply  impossible  that  such  as  He  is 
should  have  lived  and  died  in  strife  with  sin,  and  yet 
left  sin  as  He  found  it.  No  power  of  victory  that  is 
attributed  to  such  a  life  as  His  can  seem  too  great 
to  be  true. 

But  what  should  be  made  the  most  of  just  here 
is,  that  in  Jesus  the  fact  of  the  essential  and  eternal 
enmity  between  the  seed  of  the  serpent  and  the  seed 
of  the  woman,  between  sin  and  man,  was  supremely 
manifested.  It  is  not  strange  or  unnatural.  It  is 
most  natural.  Oh,  if  we  could  all  learn  and  believe 
that !  Try  to  remember  it  in  your  lives.  You  live 
in  struggle,  and  you  think  it  hard.  But  if  you 
were  not  in  struggle  you  would  be  disowning  your 
manhood.  You  are  simply  meeting  the  necessity 
of  being  a  man.  O  struggler,  take  that  necessity, 
and  be  thankful  and  struggle  on !  And  if  you  are  a 
coward,  and  want  to  run  out  of  the  battle,  get  cour- 
age from  the  thought  that  you  cannot  run  out  of  it. 
It  reaches  everywhere  that  manhood  reaches.  You 
might  as  well  fight  out  your  share  of  it  upon  your 
little  plot  of  ground  as  upon  any  other. 

And  if  you  are  looking  up  at  another  man,  and 

admiring  him  and  envying  him,  and  thinking  how 

calm  and  free  from  struggle  his  life  is,  and  getting 

discontented   and   discouraged  because  yours  is  so 

different  from  his ;  it  will  relieve  all  that  if  you  can 

know  that  he  certainly  has  his  struggle  because  he 
19 


29©  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

too  is  a  man;  and  that  just  so  far  as  it  is  different 
from  yours,  just  so  far  very  likely  it  is  harder  than 
yours.  Or  yet  again  if  you  want  to  save  some  fallen 
brother,  and  try  to  make  a  bad  man  good  again,  it 
certainly  will  help  you  to  know  something  of  the 
fight  in  which  he  fell,  to  be  assured  that  the  poor 
fellow  has  not  gone  abroad  to  find  his  ruin.  It  has 
come  to  him.  He  is  simply  a  wreck  on  that  same 
sea  where  all  of  us  are  sailing ;  and  the  more  we  have 
been  beaten  by  the  storm  ourselves,  the  more  we 
shall  understand  where  his  masts  have  gone  to,  and 
how  his  bulwarks  came  to  be  beaten  in.  Every- 
where life  is  clearer  to  us  by  the  old  truth  of 
Genesis. 

But  as  yet  I  have  spoken  of  only  half  that  truth. 
I  have  dwelt  only  on  the  fact  of  the  enmity  between 
man  and  sin.  I  must  speak  very  briefly  of  the  re- 
mainder of  our  verse,  that  which  declares  what  the 
issue  of  the  long  struggle  is  to  be.  "I  will  put 
enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman,  and  between 
thy  seed  and  her  seed.  It  shall  bruise  thy  head  and 
thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel."  The  wounded  heel  of 
man  !  The  broken  head  of  sin  !  Is  not  the  promise 
this :  that  man,  trusting  in  God,  shall  come  out  of 
the  strife  wounded  but  victorious,  victorious  but 
wounded ;  and  so,  that  in  the  expectation  of  both, 
of  the  wounds  by  the  way  and  the  victory  at  the 
end,  is  the  true  disposition  of  man  towards  life? 

If  this  be  the  promise,  it  is  perfectly  verified  in 
the  supreme  seed  of  the  woman,  in  Christ  and  the 
struggle  of  His  life.  He  was  wounded  sorely ;  a  life 
all  torn  and  bleeding  He  dragged  out  to  the  end; 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  291 

but  when  the  end  came  it  was  victorious.  Look  at 
Him  on  the  cross.  What  words  could  tell  the  story 
like  these :  "He  shall  bruise  thy  head  and  thou  shalt 
bruise  his  heel"?  Sin  has  taken  the  Saviour  and 
fastened  Him  there.  It  has  driven  in  the  nails  and 
crowded  down  the  crown  of  thorns  upon  the  fore- 
head. It  has  seemed  to  have  its  own  way  with 
Him,  and  all  the  while,  with  those  hands  closing  in 
agony  over  the  nails,  He  is  crushing  its  life  out.  As 
we  read  the  story,  what  sin  is  doing  to  Christ  and 
what  Christ  is  doing  to  sin  take  their  true  places 
and  proportions.  Sin  is  tormenting  Him,  but  He  is 
vanquishing  sin.  And  what  took  place  upon  the 
cross  has  taken  place  ever  since.  Sin  hinders  the 
work,  and  insults  the  name  of  Christ ;  but  Christ  in 
the  long  run  and  in  the  end  overcomes  sin  and  insult 
and  scorn.  It  bruises  His  heel,  and  He  bruises  its 
head. 

And  what  is  true  of  Himself,  He  makes  true  of 
the  world  which  He  is  leading  on  to  ever  better 
things.  I  think  that  the  prospect  of  human  progress 
against  the  powers  of  ignorance  and  brutality  and 
selfishness  which  stop  its  way,  reduces  itself  more 
and  more  clearly  to  this :  They  shall  bruise  its  heel 
and  it  shall  bruise  their  heads.  Not  without  wounds, 
not  without  mortifying  and  distressing  disappoint- 
ments shall  any  good  cause  advance  to  its  success. 
He  is  a  foolish  dreamer  who  expects  an  easy  and 
bloodless  victory  for  any  noble  plan.  But  yet,  suc- 
cess waits  before  every  good  cause,  if  it  can  only 
persevere  and  struggle  on  with  its  wounded  heel. 
He  is  a  foolish  slave  to  first  appearances  who  lets 


292  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

the  immediate  wound  shut  the  final  victory  out  of 
his  sight.  It  is  in  this  truth,  pervading  all  of  hu- 
man history,  that  there  lies  the  secret  of  that  strong 
presence  of  pathos  in  every  enthusiastic  hope  and 
triumphant  thanksgiving  of  mankind.  It  grows 
more  and  more  solemn  and  touching  to  us,  I  think. 
The  highest  hopes  and  loftiest  rejoicings  always 
have  a  touch  of  sadness  to  them.  The  flowers  of 
our  Decoration  Days  are  always  laid  on  graves.  It 
is  because  deep  into  the  convictions  of  men's  hearts 
has  sunk  this  truth  of  long  experience,  that  there  is 
no  victory  except  by  wounds.  That  truth  has  made 
all  the  larger  and  better  actions  of  the  world  sober 
with  a  fine  soberness.  It  has  caused  soberness  in- 
deed to  be  the  necessary  accompaniment  and  warrant 
of  true  strength.  The  coward  who  shrinks  from  the 
wounds,  and  the  boaster  who  forgets  that  there  are 
wounds,  are  both  ruled  out  of  the  best  work  of 
the  world. 

And  when  we  turn  from  the  world's  large  experi- 
ence— of  which  it  is  not  well  to  speculate  and  talk 
too  much — and  look  at  our  own  private  lives,  the 
same  truth  appears  there,  too.  Every  earnest  man 
grows  to  two  strong  convictions :  one,  of  the  victory 
to  which  a  life  may  come ;  the  other  of  the  obstacles 
and  wounds  which  it  must  surely  encounter  in  com- 
ing there.  Alas  for  him  who  gains  only  one  of  these 
convictions !  Alas  for  him  who  learns  only  confi- 
dence in  the  result,  and  never  catches  sight  of  all 
that  must  come  in  between — the  pains  and  blows 
and  disappointments!  How  many  times  he  will 
sink  down  and  lose  his  hope!      How  many  times 


THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT  293 

some  wayside  cross  will  seem  to  be  the  end  of  every- 
thing to  him ! 

Alas  also  for  him  who  only  feels  the  wounds  and 
sees  no  victory  ahead !  How  often  life  will  seem  to 
him  not  worth  the  living!  There  are  multitudes  of 
men  of  this  last  sort ;  men  with  too  much  serious- 
ness and  perception  to  say  that  the  world  is  easy, 
too  clear-sighted  not  to  see  its  obstacles,  too  pure 
not  to  be  wounded  and  offended  by  its  wickedness, 
but  with  no  faith  large  enough  to  look  beyond  and 
see  the  end ;  men  with  the  wounded  heel  that  hin- 
ders and  disables  them,  but  with  no  strength  to  set 
the  wounded  foot  upon  the  head  of  the  serpent  and 
to  claim  their  triumph.  Only,  friends!  do  not  ex- 
pect to  win  the  battle  of  your  life  without  wounds. 
Do  not  expect  to  be  good  with  a  goodness  unscarred 
by  temptation,  and  untorn  by  the  rocks  of  doubt 
and  difficulty  on  which  you  have  fallen.  If  you  do, 
you  will  surely  come  to  disappointment  which  may 
grow  into  despair.  But,  on  the  other  side,  do  not 
let  any  certainty  of  wounds  deter  you  from  the 
battle ;  do  not  let  any  assurance  that  you  will  fail, 
and  fall,  and  sin  again  and  again  and  again,  shut  out 
from  you  the  brighter  certainty  that  if  you  will  cling 
to  God  He  will  bring  you  to  His  holiness.  Be 
watchful  to  keep  your  strength  as  strong  as  possible ; 
but  be  happy  if  in  the  vision  of  the  future  you  can 
just  see  yourself  crawling  up,  all  wounds  and  blood, 
to  the  fountain  at  the  end,  and  laying  yourself, 
ready  to  die,  in  that  water  which  is  eternal  life. 

And  do  not  spread  it  out  too  thin,  this  truth  of 
ours,  by  applying  it  merely  to  your  whole  life.     It 


294  THE  ENDLESS  CONFLICT 

must  be  that  many  a  one  of  you  has  some  special 
task  upon  his  mind  which  needs  its  application. 
You  are  asking  yourself,  "What  will  happen  if  I  do 
this  duty,  if  I  resist  this  temptation  in  order  to  be 
dutiful  to-morrow?  "  Get  your  answer  out  of  the 
old  Book  of  Genesis.  That  temptation  is  your 
Satan.  "It  will  bruise  your  heel,  but  you  shall 
bruise  its  head."  Do  not  think  the  victory  will  be 
easy.  Do  not  think  the  precious  fruit  will  drop  of 
itself  into  your  open  hands.  You  must  wrench  it 
off  of  the  tree  of  difficulty ;  but  it  is  certainly  yours 
if  you  will  take  it.  It  would  be  good  indeed  if  this 
verse  could  to-day  give  strength  to  some  one  of  you 
to  do  a  duty  to-morrow  which  he  had  been  almost 
ready  not  to  do. 

And  now,  come  back  to  Christ.  Let  Him  stand 
clearly  before  us  as  we  close  —  Christ  with  His 
wounds  and  His  victory.  His  wounds  and  victory 
were  both  for  us.  He  promised  them  both  together 
to  us,  because,  for  us  as  for  Him,  they  were  in- 
separable. He  promised  them  both  together  when 
He  stretched  out  His  hands  and  said:  "If  any  man 
serve  me,  let  him  follow  me ;  and  where  I  am  there 
shall  also  my  servant  be. 


XVIII. 
BULK   AND    ESSENCE. 

"  A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  smoking  flax  shall  he  not 
quench,  till  he  send  forth  judgment  unto  victory." — Matthew  xii, 
20. 

Matthew  is  telling  us  how  his  Master  loved  to 
work  in  quietness,  and  how,  when  His  works  of 
mercy  were  the  most  abundant  and  the  crowd  grew 
greatest,  Christ  withdrew  Himself,  and  charged 
those  whom  He  had  healed  that  they  should  not 
make  Him  known. 

And  Matthew  goes  on  to  declare  that  this  was 
done  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by 
Esaias  the  prophet ;  and  then  he  goes  back  and 
quotes  the  words  in  which  750  years  before,  Isaiah 
had  written  the  description  of  the  servant  of  the 
Lord  who  was  to  come.  In  that  description  are 
these  words:  "A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break, 
and  the  smoking  flax  shall  he  not  quench.  He  shall 
bring  forth  judgment  unto  truth." 

We  cannot  doubt  that  Matthew  had  often  heard 
his  Master  quote  these  words,  and  take  them  to 
Himself.  As  Christ  grew  up  to  maturity,  and 
recognized  the  purpose  of  His  life,  and  found  how 

295 


296  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

exceptional  He  was  among  men,  we  can  well  under- 
stand what  a  strength  and  delight  it  must  have  been 
for  Him  to  look  back  and  see  that,  here  and  there, 
words  had  been  spoken  and  lives  had  been  lived, 
which  had  anticipated  and  prepared  for  Him.  The 
world  was  not  all  unready  for  His  coming.  Men  in 
other  times  had  dreamed  of  such  a  life  as  He  had  at 
last  come  to  live;  and  though  they  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  realizing  their  dream,  and,  so  far  as  they 
had  attempted  it,  the  world  had  always  hated  it  and 
cast  it  out ;  yet  still  their  shining  presences  in  his- 
tory made  a  true  line  of  light  which  might  now  lead 
the  eyes  of  men  to  Him,  and  cause  Him  to  be  com- 
prehensible to  them.  There  were  souls  which  were 
His  own,  to  which  He  could  come.  Some  of  them 
would  perhaps  receive  Him.  He  was  not  astray  in 
the  world.  He  was  in  fulfilment  of  its  loftiest  pur- 
poses and  divinest  hopes.  Its  highest  standards, 
which  had  been  partially  realized  by  its  best  men, 
bore  witness  to  Him  that  it  was  His  Father's  world. 
Therefore  in  it,  though  it  ignored  Him  and  mis- 
understood Him,  and  even  crucified  Him,  He  could 
still  count  Himself  at  home.  This  is  the  pathetic 
side  of  Christ's  quotations  of  prophecies,  with  re- 
gard to  Himself,  from  the  Old  Testament  prophets. 
This  is  the  feeling  which  we  can  discover  beating 
underneath  this.  His  quotation  from  Isaiah. 

Let  us  study  that  word  of  Isaiah  and  of  Christ. 
It  is  a  declaration  of  the  way  in  which  the  true  ser- 
vant of  God  will  always  do  his  best  and  most  crea- 
tive work.  Through  the  tumult  of  the  old  Hebrew 
history,  through  the  uproar  of  the  temple  and  the 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  297 

days  of  Herod,  through  each  there  is  seen  walking 
some  one  figure  which  bears  the  true  impress  of 
creative  energy.  In  each  of  these  times  it  is  from 
this  figure  that  the  power  is  to  proceed  which  is  to 
draw  forth  and  keep  all  of  the  good  that  the  past 
has  in  it,  and  which  is  to  make  all  things  new.  And 
the  great  characteristic  of  each  of  those  figures  is  its 
quietness.  Of  each  of  them  it  is  said,  "He  shall 
not  strive,  nor  cry,  neither  shall  his  voice  be  heard 
in  the  streets."  How  that  gives  us  a  new  key  with 
which  to  unlock  the  puzzles  of  History!  The  crea- 
tive powers  are  quiet.  It  is  the  destructive  forces 
which  make  the  noise.  The  tornado,  the  hailstorm, 
and  the  thunderbolt  shake  the  earth  and  make  it 
tremble.  The  dew,  the  shower,  and  the  sunshine 
come  noiselessly. 

The  destructive  forces,  indeed,  cannot  be  spared. 
The  earth  needs  them  again  and  again  to  clear  the 
way  for  the  work  of  creation  which  is  to  follow.  No 
book  resounds  more  than  some  parts  of  the  Bible  do 
with  the  fury  of  the  forces  of  destruction  doing  their 
terrible  work.  From  the  flashing  of  the  fiery  swords 
over  the  closed  gate  of  Eden,  to  the  plunge  of  the 
beast  and  the  false  prophet  as  they  are  cast  together 
into  the  lake  of  brimstone,  in  the  Apocalypse,  the 
voice  of  destruction,  of  revolution,  of  restraint,  is 
ever  breaking  forth  from  time  to  time.  But  he 
reads  the  Bible  very  feebly  and  superficially  who 
does  not  know  that  it  is  not  these  passages  which 
make  the  Bible  to  really  be  the  Bible,  the  Book  of 
God.  It  is  in  the  record  of  creative  force;  it  is  in 
the  story  of  the  soundless  Genesis  of  life ;  it  is  in 


298  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

the  peaceful  harmony  of  harps  that  the  real  power 
and  music  of  the  Book  abide. 

Oh,  that  we  could  realize  that  this  is  true  through 
all  the  history  of  man !  that  we  could  see  how  it  is 
almost  always  the  destructive  forces  which  make  the 
noise  and  win  the  wonder  and  applause  of  men,  and 
realize  that  however  the  destructive  forces  may  have 
their  true  place,  and  the  noisy  outcry  may  be  some- 
times necessary,  the  real  strength  of  life  is  in  creative 
effort  which  moves  as  quietly  among  the  tasks  of 
men  as  Jesus  Christ  walked  along  the  lanes  of 
Galilee. 

You  who  are  called  to  fight  for  truth — it  may  be 
your  duty  to  take  error  by  the  throat  and  drown  its 
war-cries  with  loud  denunciation.  If  that  is  your 
duty,  do  it !  Do  it  unsparingly  and  bravely.  Do 
it  so  that  your  destruction  of  the  error  may  be  as 
final  and  complete  as  possible.  But  be  thoroughly 
glad  when  it  is  done,  and  you  may  go  on  to  better 
work.  Do  not  let  yourself  think  that  noisy  de- 
nunciation, however  necessary  it  may  be,  is  the  best 
work  that  a  man  can  do.  Honor  and  do  not  despise 
the  men  who  are  quietly  creative.  Value  it  as  the 
best  part  of  your  life  if,  anywhere  in  the  midst  of 
the  tumult  of  destruction,  you  are  able  to  put  your 
finger  under  any  load  and  lift  it,  or  fasten  with  your 
encouragement  any  stone  of  real  purposeful  achieve- 
ment in  its  place. 

But  I  must  come  more  directly  to  the  point  of  my 
sermon.  In  the  text,  Jesus  Christ  is  speaking  of 
the  treatment  which  He  and  all  the  true  servants  of 
God  will  give  to  weakness   and   limitation.     It   is 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  299 

surely  something  which  we  should  like  to  know. 
Here  is  our  world  all  full  of  failure.  Here  are  our 
lives  which,  all  of  them,  more  or  less,  are  failures. 
We  know  a  little,  but  we  do  not  know  enough. 
We  can  do  something,  but  our  strength  speedily 
breaks  down.  There  is  a  little  character  and  a  little 
faith,  but  they  are  very  little;  and  to  think  for  a 
moment  that  they  are  more  than  little  only  proves 
what  feeble  standards  of  faith  and  character  we  have. 
So  it  is  to-day ;  and  so  it  has  been  always. 

Now,  suppose  that  it  becomes  clearly  known  to  us 
that  into  this  world  there  is  coming  an  absolutely 
perfect  Being,  a  Being  positively  perfect,  a  Being 
who  not  merely  never  does  what  is  wrong,  but  who 
is  vividly,  eagerly,  thoroughly  alive  in  every  good 
activity.  Will  not  the  question  spring  up  in  our 
hearts:  "How  will  this  Perfect  One,  who  sets  no 
limits  to  His  own  duty  and  enthusiasm,  deal  with 
the  poor  half-hearted  folk  into  whose  streets  and 
houses  He  has  come?  " 

We  know  the  answer  to  that  question  which  our 
experience  of  men  suggests.  We  know  how  often 
men  who  have  reached  proficiency  in  any  good 
attainment  grow  contemptuous  about  the  feeble, 
fitful  efforts  after  the  same  attainment  which  less 
devoted  or  less  able  men  are  making.  The  man 
whose  whole  life  is  given  up  to  one  great  cause,  to 
the  freeing  of  the  slave  or  the  rescue  of  the  drunk- 
ard, loses  all  patience  with  his  neighbor  who  gives 
to  either  of  these  pressing  needs  only  a  little  share 
of  the  interest  which  he  divides  among  many  causes. 
The  devoted  student  of  a  special  science  thinks  less 


300  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

than  nothing  of  the  amateur  trifling  with  his  favorite 
study,  which  is  all  that  the  man  who  is  busily  occu- 
pied with  pressing  duties  has  time  for. 

Most  noteworthy  of  all,  the  passionate  searcher 
after  character,  the  man  who  is  struggling  to  resist 
temptation  and  to  do  his  duty,  he  is  not  able  always 
to  see  value  in  these  poor,  temporary  outbursts  of 
ambition  to  be  holy  which  occasionally  break  forth 
out  of  the  lives  of  men,  who  in  general  are  given  up 
to  selfishness.  It  must  be  hard  for  him.  He  is  a 
man  to  whom  life  has  come  to  mean  simply  one 
long,  intense  struggle  after  goodness.  He  sleeps 
and  wakes  in  the  presence  of  his  enemies,  which  are 
his  passions  and  temptations.  His  armor  is  never 
off.  His  every  thought  is  trying  to  devise  some 
new  means  for  his  warfare.  And  then  he  looks 
about  him  and  sees  you  and  me  feebly  praising  vir- 
tue, provided  it  is  not  too  excessively  and  fanatic- 
ally virtuous,  feebly  tying  a  riband  in  our  cap  and 
marching  in  processions  in  honor  of  goodness,  when 
the  road  is  safe  and  when  the  day  is  bright.  No 
wonder  that  he  is  moved  with  something  like  con- 
tempt !  It  is  the  feeling  of  the  regular  army  for  the 
holiday  militia.  No  wonder  that  he  is  almost  ready 
to  say,  "If  you  are  not  ready  for  more  serious  work 
than  that,  put  off  your  armor  altogether.  Do  not 
pretend  to  be  struggling  for  righteousness,  if  you 
have  no  more  energy  to  put  into  the  fight  than 
that.  If  the  reed  is  so  bruised,  better  break  it  alto- 
gether. If  the  lamp  with  its  smoking  flaxen  wick  is 
so  nearly  gone  out,  better  let  it  die, — aye,  better 
even  quench  and  extinguish  it." 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  301 

This  is  all  natural  enough  —  natural,  that  is,  in 
the  lower  range  of  probability,  as  an  expression  of 
the  baser  and  weaker  side  of  men. 

But  now  here  comes  Jesus  Christ,  and  at  Him  we 
look  with  anxious  curiosity,  for  in  Him  we  know 
that  we  shall  see  this  problem,  like  so  many  prob- 
lems, lighted  up  with  new  illumination.  He  comes, 
a  burning  and  a  shining  light ;  and  all  around  Him 
are  these  flickering  and  smoking  wicks.  He  comes 
with  the  true  divine  fibre  of  humanity  unharmed  in 
Him  ;  and  all  around  him  are  these  twisted,  crushed, 
broken  lives,  bruised  from  without  and  with  subtle, 
lurking  poison  corrupting  them  within.  Look  at 
Him,  as  He  shines  there  in  the  pages  of  the  Gospels ! 
What  do  you  see?  Is  there  a  symptom  of  con- 
tempt? Is  there  not,  on  the  contrary,  the  tenderest 
and  most  reverent  care  for  everything  which  there 
is  of  good,  or  of  effort  to  be  good,  in  every  man  or 
woman,  no  matter  how  little  it  may  be? 

I  think  of  Jesus  Christ  as  He  sat  by  the  woman 
of  Samaria  beside  the  well;  I  think  of  Him  as  He 
stretched  out  His  hand  to  raise  the  faithless,  sinking 
Peter;  I  think  of  Him  as  He  turned  His  weary  head 
upon  the  cross  to  catch  the  mere  whisper  of  faith 
that  fluttered  on  the  last  breath  of  the  dying  thief; 
I  let  these,  and  a  multitude  of  other  remembrances 
of  Him,  open  to  me  the  whole  spirit  of  His  life.  I 
bid  that  spirit  of  His  life  stand  out  in  general  from 
the  whole  body  of  the  graphic  record,  and  how  plain 
it  all  is!  There  could  not  be  a  grain  of  true  gold  in 
any  life,  that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  see  it  and  love  it. 
There  could  not  be  the  lightest  tremble  of  desire  for 


302  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

good  in  any  soul  of  all  the  multitude  before  Him, 
that  did  not  touch  His  heart  and  make  it  tremble 
too.  Not  one  indication  is  there  anywhere  in  His 
life  of  that  which  I  have  just  described, — the  despis- 
ing, by  Him  who  stands  upon  the  summit  of  the 
pyramid,  of  the  poor  crawling  aspirants  who  are  just 
starting  at  the  base. 

This  is  surely  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  things 
in  the  whole  history  of  Christ.  When  we  look  for 
its  explanation,  and  try  to  see  what  characteristic  of 
His  nature  lay  at  the  root  of  this  habit  of  His  action, 
I  think  we  find  what  we  are  seeking  in  that  intense 
appreciation  of  the  real  qualities  of  things  which 
belonged  supremely  to  Him,  as  it  belongs,  in  its 
degree,  to  all  true  and  fine  characters.  The  com- 
mon nature,  the  vulgar  man,  cares  not  so  much  for 
qualities  as  for  quantities.  His  eye  is  fixed  on  bulk, 
not  essence.  He  thinks  more  of  a  great  villain  than 
of  a  little  saint.  And  no  sainthood  is  a  real  thing 
to  him,  unless  it  is  clothed  in  light,  and  brilliantly 
shines  upon  the  world.  He  can  perceive  no  fra- 
grance, unless  the  air  is  heavy  with  it.  He  can  hear 
no  zephyr  till  it  swells  into  a  whirlwind.  The  fact 
that  an  act  has  the  true  quality  of  greatness,  though 
it  has  so  little  of  it  that  the  act  itself  is  not  a  great 
act, — this  fact  does  not  interest  the  vulgar  man. 
The  fact  that  a  man  has  the  true  quality  of  unselfish- 
ness or  devotion,  though  it  is  so  broken  and  distorted 
that  it  can  make  no  great  and  brilliant  sacrifices, 
seems  to  him  insignificant. 

Do  you  not  recognize  what  I  mean  when  I  say 
that,  with  Christ  and  with  men  who  are  like  Christ, 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  303 

all  this  is  different?  With  them  the  perception  of 
the  quality  of  things  is  instant  and  unerring;  and 
when  good  quality  is  found  in  anything  it  wins  from 
them  precisely  the  same  kind  of  honor,  whatever 
may  be  its  degree.  The  same  true  quality  of  fire  is 
in  the  smouldering  lamp-wick  that  is  in  the  blazing 
sun.  The  true  quality  of  woody  fibre  is  in  the  poor 
twig,  crushed  and  trampled  out  of  shape  under 
men's  feet  in  the  muddy  roadway,  as  well  as  in  the 
splendid  oak  that  fronts  the  sunlight  on  the  hill ! 
Whatever  value  belongs  essentially  to  fire  and  fibre, 
the  wise  and  fine  man  gives  to  the  qualities  of  those 
things  always,  in  their  least  as  well  as  in  their  great- 
est exhibitions.  They  are  precious  in  themselves, 
and  the  hope  of  the  growth  which  is  proper  to  fire 
and  to  fibre  is  never  lost  so  long  as  those  qualities 
are  truly  there. 

How  many  are  the  instances  in  which  this  distinc- 
tion between  the  reverence  for  pure  quality,  or 
essence,  and  the  reverence  for  quantity,  or  bulk, 
applies.  Take  our  pride  in  our  country.  What  a 
difference  there  is  between  the  patriot  who  simply 
boats  of  her  that  she  is  "big,"  and  the  other  patriot 
whose  eye  is  fastened  with  anxiety  on  the  things 
which,  great  or  little,  make  her  an  object  of  interest 
and  value,  a  true,  fresh  contribution  to  the  multi- 
tude of  national  life  which  fills  the  world.  Let  her 
be  little,  let  her  be  inglorious,  if  only  she  is  pure, 
and  gives  her  people  freedom,  and  helps  them  in 
their  freedom  to  live  useful,  happy,  upright  lives. 
What  a  difference  there  is  between  the  traveller 
who,    in    foreign    lands,    boasts    of    his    country's 


304  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

population,  and  the  other  traveller  who,  wherever  he 
goes,  praises  and  maintains  his  country's  principles! 
The  country  which  is  proud  of  its  bulk  is  sure  to  be 
contemptuous  and,  if  the  temptation  comes,  to  be 
a  bully  towards  the  nations  that  are  small.  The 
country  that  believes  and  rejoices  in  her  principles 
will  be  quick  with  sympathy  and  help  for  any  least 
and  most  degraded  nations  in  whose  heart  the  faint- 
est fire  of  those  principles  is  burning. 

Then  think  in  the  same  way  of  the  Church.  It 
was  recently  said  to  me  that  the  most  important 
question  for  the  Church  in  our  time  is  the  financial 
question.  Alas  for  us,  if  the  Church  came  to  think 
like  that !  The  financial  question  is  a  question  of 
bulk.  It  has  no  relation  to  character.  It  inquires, 
"How  great  can  we  make  the  Church?  "  not,  "What 
can  we  make  the  Church?"  You  might  make  the 
Church  as  rich  as  you  please,  and  make  her  narrower 
and  baser  all  the  time.  The  questions  of  faith,  of 
worship,  of  spiritual  life,  of  missions,  are  questions 
of  essential  quality.  No  Church  is  healthy  which 
is  not  ready  to  see  herself  made  indefinitely  small 
and  poor,  if  only  she  can  keep  and  feel  growing 
within  her  the  love  of  God  and  love  of  man  which 
are  the  essence  of  the  Church's  life. 

Or,  think  of  your  own  faith.  The  question  must 
be,  my  dear  friends,  first  of  all,  not  "What  do  we 
believe?"  but,  "How  do  we  believe?"  It  is  not 
the  length  of  our  creed,  but  the  way  in  which  we 
hold  it,  long  or  short,  that  marks  our  real  worth  as 
believers.  What  we  have  most  of  all  to  dread  is 
not  the  limitation,  but  the  degradation  of  belief.     I 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  305 

know  that  He  who  desires  for  us  that  we  should 
hold  all  truth,  who  means  for  us  that  ultimately 
every  one  of  us  shall  hold  all  truth,  would  far  rather, 
as  He  looks  into  our  hearts,  see  one  fragment  of 
truth  spiritually,  unselfishly,  lovingly  held  there, 
than  a  great  mass  of  truth,  however  true,  feebly 
grasped,  and  valued,  in  any  degree,  for  the  advan- 
tage which  it  brings  to  us  the  holders. 

Bulk  has,  indeed,  its  value.  A  great  deal  of  a 
good  thing  is  more  precious  than  a  little  of  the  same 
good  thing.  The  oak-tree  on  the  hillside  is  worth 
more  than  the  twig  lying  bruised  and  trampled  in 
the  muddy  road.  The  sun  gives  more  light  than  the 
smoking  flax.  I  do  not  forget  that  the  same  Bible 
which  has  the  Book  of  Acts  has  also  the  Book  of 
the  Revelation.  The  same  New  Testament  which 
has  the  story  of  the  little  company  gathered  trem- 
bling behind  closed  doors  in  the  upper  chamber  at 
Jerusalem,  has  also  the  gorgeous  picture  of  the 
multitude  which  no  man  can  number,  of  all  nations 
and  kindreds  and  people  and  tongues,  standing  be- 
fore the  throne  and  before  the  Lamb.  The  Book 
of  Acts  has  the  indignant  Church  casting  out  Simon 
Magus,  and  crying  to  him,  "Thy  money  perish  with 
thee!  "  insisting  on  purity  even  when  purity  could 
only  be  secured  at  the  sacrifice  of  numbers  and  of 
wealth.  But  the  Book  of  the  Revelation  has  the 
vision  of  the  open-gated  City,  where  there  shall  be 
no  night,  and  into  which  shall  be  brought  the  glory 
and  honor  of  the  nations,  the  Church  gathering  into 
herself  all  the  richness  and  greatness  of  the  whole 
world. 


3o6  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

It  is  possible,  in  other  words,  to  take  what  I  have 
been  saying  and  misread  it  into  an  affected  love  of 
littleness  for  its  own  sake,  a  praise  of  constraint  and 
limitation  even  when  they  are  not  necessary  as  the 
price  of  purity.  So  the  narrow  sectarian  not  merely 
is  willing  to  see  his  sect  small,  if  so  only  it  can  be 
orthodox.  He  has  often  been  ready  to  think  it 
orthodox  just  in  proportion  as  it  was  small,  and  to 
grudge  it  the  growth  which,  if  it  really  held  the 
truth  of  God,  it  ought  to  crave.  In  a  healthily  con- 
stituted world  like  ours,  in  a  world  over  which  God 
rules,  the  Good  always  ought  to  be  reaching  out  to 
become  the  Large.  Only,  our  truth  is  this:  that 
before  the  Good  becomes  the  Large,  while  it  still 
remains  the  Small,  it  ought  to  honor  itself,  and  it 
ought  to  receive  honor  from  others,  for  its  essential 
quality  of  goodness. 

Do  not  the  young  men  need  to  understand  this, 
they  whose  standards  of  life  are  every  day  being 
formed?  It  is  no  easy  thing  to  keep  at  once  the 
deep  love  of  reality  which  insists  that  what  we  have 
be  true,  however  small  it  be ;  and  at  the  same  time 
to  keep  the  aspiration  and  ambition  which  desire  to 
hold  as  richly  as  possible  every  good  possession  of  a 
human  soul.  It  is  easy  to  fall  into  the  way  of  say- 
ing: "I  believe  very  little,  but,  at  least,  what  I  do 
believe  I  believe  really ;  and  I  do  not  pretend  to  be- 
lieve what  I  do  not  believe,  and  I  do  not  care  to  be- 
lieve very  much"  ;  or  to  say  about  action,  "I  do  not 
undertake  to  do  much  for  fellow-man ;  but,  at  any 
rate,  in  what  I  do  undertake  I  am  no  hypocrite,  and 
I  am  satisfied  with  that." 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  307 

Do  you  not  know  such  talk,  and  is  there  not 
something  very  shallow  in  it?  To  believe  a  great 
deal,  and  yet  to  believe  it  all  as  really  as  you  now 
believe  your  little;  to  undertake  everything  in  your 
power  to  help  your  fellow-man,  and  yet  to  be  no 
hypocrite  in  any  of  it, — that  alone  is  the  worthy 
ambition  of  a  manly  man.  The  deliberate  sacrifice 
of  bulk  to  essence,  to  genuineness,  of  quantity  to 
quality,  is  a  temporary  act,  done  for  a  temporary 
purpose.  The  time  must  come  when  the  best  shall 
be  universal.  "The  earth  is  the  Lord's";  "He  is 
the  King  of  the  whole  earth."  If,  for  the  moment, 
any  part  of  the  earth  must  be  reckoned  to  be  not 
His  but  His  enemy's,  it  must  be  only  in  order  that 
on  what  is  really  and  already  His,  His  power  may 
gather  itself  to  go  forth  and  conquer  and  possess  the 
whole.  Great  is  the  power  of  the  young  man  who, 
at  the  beginning  of  and  throughout  an  earnest  life, 
can  be  possessed  with  the  double  power  of  profound 
thoroughness  and  illimitable  hope. 

The  identity  of  essence  in  things  which  are  very 
difTerent  from  one  another  in  size  and  shape  and 
look,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  important 
principles  alike  in  the  physical  and  in  the  moral 
world.  It  is  a  principle  the  application  of  which  is 
illuminating  modern  science.  A  simplicity  which 
gives  new  unguessed  majesty  to  nature  is  seen  and 
felt  everywhere  issuing  from  beneath  the  complexity 
which  makes  her  superficial  aspect.  In  the  world 
of  morals  the  same  principle  clears  up  many  obscu- 
rities, and  scatters  many  sophistries.  It  takes  two 
lives:    one  of  them   arrogant,   brutal,   overbearing; 


3o8  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

the  other  of  them  gentle,  compliant,  unobtrusive; 
and,  unveiling  the  power  and  meaning  which  lie  at 
the  heart  of  each,  it  says,  "The  real  essence  of  the 
two  is  the  same.  They  both  mean  selfishness."  It 
takes  the  feeble  sin  of  the  puppet  of  society,  cruel 
and  heartless  in  the  little  world  in  which  he  lives, 
and  makes  it  evident  that  it  is  the  same  kind  of  sin 
with  the  stupendous  inhumanity  of  a  Roman  Em- 
peror or  an  Inquisitor  of  Spain.  Thus  it  makes  that 
which  is  insignificant  in  degree  seem  horrible  in 
kind.  It  brings  out  the  color  in  what  we  call  a 
small  trangression,  by  the  lurid  light  which  stares 
out  from  the  more  flagrant  sin. 

The  truth  which  we  have  been  studying  from  the 
words  of  Christ  simply  presents  this  principle  upon 
the  other  side.  Then  it  becomes  very  rich  and 
gracious.  It  declares  the  hope  that  is  in  the  least 
goodness  just  as  the  other  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple declared  the  danger  that  is  in  the  least  wicked- 
ness. Are  not  these  two  things  the  things  we  need 
to  know?  The  great  goodnesses  and  the  great 
wickednesses  it  is  easy  to  discern.  It  must  be  easy, 
we  think,  for  the  martyrs  to  know  that  they  are 
meeting  God's  will,  and  to  get  the  inspiration  of 
that  knowledge.  It  must  be  easy  for  the  murderers 
to  know  that  they  are  horribly  wicked,  and  to  be 
haunted  by  the  horror  of  their  wickedness.  But  for 
the  schoolboy  to  know  that  his  struggle  not  to  tell  a 
lie  is  a  steadfastness  of  the  same  sort  as  the  martyr's 
unflinching  constancy  before  the  flame ;  and  for  the 
quarrelsome  slanderer  to  know  that  his  petulance 
belongs  in  the  same  category  with  the  crime  of  mur- 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  309 

der — those  are  the  hard  things.  Modern  mechanics 
largely  employs  itself  in  turning  to  use  and  effect 
little  streams  of  force  which  have  heretofore  been 
usually  wasted.  It  is  the  waste  of  the  hope  which 
is  in  the  heart  of  small  endeavors  to  be  good,  and 
of  the  fear  which  ought  to  come  out  of  the  least 
flagrant  developments  of  evil,  that  is  always  robbing 
our  moral  life  of  strength. 

Christ  sets  Himself  to  remedy  that  waste.  He 
would  fain  make  the  least  endeavor  for  a  better  life 
a  ground  of  hope,  and  a  starting  point  of  higher 
struggle.  Look  at  Christ  and  Simon  Peter!  See 
them  some  day,  as  they  walk  along  the  road  talk- 
ing together.  We  have  grown  used  to  the  sight 
and  have  forgotten  how  strange  it  is,  but  it  is  very 
strange  !  How  far  apart  these  beings  are  !  One  is 
the  very  embodiment  of  the  eternal  righteousness, 
pure  as  the  spotless  heavens,  deep  and  strong  as  the 
vast  profundity  of  space.  The  other  is  a  poor, 
stumbling  Jew  from  Bethsaida.  One  is  a  smoking 
lamp  that  hardly  keeps  itself  alive ;  the  other  is  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness.  One  is  a  bruised  reed,  all 
torn  and  broken;  the  other  is  the  Tree  of  Life 
whose  leaves  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 

Yet  look !  See  the  clear  eyes  of  Jesus  gazing  into 
the  thick  and  muddy  soul  of  Peter.  He  finds  Him- 
self there.  He  finds  a  child  of  the  God  whose  Son 
He  is,  in  that  poor  fragmentary  character.  He  finds, 
in  this  poor  Jew's  frantic  and  fitful  struggles,  a  bit 
of  the  same  holiness  which  fills  His  own  life  with 
peace.  What  then?  Do  you  not  see  what  grows 
up  in  the  soul  of  each  as  they  thus  walk  together 


3IO  BULK  AND  ESSENCE 

and  as  Christ  thus  discerns  Peter,  and  as  Peter  knows 
that  Christ  has  discerned  him?  Peter  is  filled  with 
hope ;  Christ  is  filled  with  pity.  There  is  no  scorn 
in  the  heart  of  Christ,  and  in  the  heart  of  Peter  there 
is  no  despair. 

Remember  David  in  the  28th  Psalm:  "Unto  thee 
will  I  cry,  my  God,  my  strength !  "  He  knows  how 
weak  the  cry  is !  It  seems  not  possible  that  God  can 
hear  it !  He  is  a  bruised  reed,  a  smoking  flax !  We 
can  see  him  look  up  to  God  with  most  pathetic  ap- 
peal: "Think  no  scorn  of  me;  lest,  if  thou  make  as 
though  thou  hearest  not,  I  become  like  them  that 
go  down  into  the  pit."  It  is  the  prayer  of  the 
smoking  flax  not  to  be  quenched,  of  the  bruised 
reed  not  to  be  broken.  Can  there  be  any  answer 
but  one  from  God  to  such  a  prayer  as  that — the 
answer  of  encouragement  and  hope?  Can  there  be 
any  surprise  when,  by  and  by,  breaks  forth  from  the 
Psalmist's  soul  the  triumphant  verse:  "Blessed  be 
the  Lord,  because  he  hath  heard  the  voice  of  my 
supplications.  The  Lord  is  my  strength  and  my 
shield." 

Two  exhortations  come,  I  think,  from  all  our 
study. 

The  first  bids  us  be  very  tolerant  and  hopeful 
about  all  the  limitation  and  deadness  which  we 
lament  in  our  fellow-men.  You  are  giving  your 
life's  blood  for  a  great  cause,  and  your  friend  gives 
it  nothing  but  a  casual  approval,  perhaps  now  and 
then  a  casual  dollar  or  a  moment's  help.  You  are 
overwhelmed   with   pity  or  amazement  to  see  the 


BULK  AND  ESSENCE  311 

little  strength  which  men  put  out  against  their  sins, 
who  nevertheless  are  really  fighting  them.  Be 
patient.  Make  much  of  the  good  effort  which 
there  is,  small  though  it  be.  Never  dare  to  say,  "It 
might  as  well  not  be  at  all,  it  is  so  little."  Be  sure 
that  there  is  no  proof  so  strong  that  you  yourself 
are  growing  rich  in  righteousness  as  is  to  be  found 
in  the  growing  reverence  and  value  which  you  feel 
for  the  slightest  beginnings  of  righteousness  in  other 
men. 

Then  apply  all  this  to  God,  and  the  other  exhor- 
tation comes.  Because  He  is  the  supreme  Right- 
eousness, therefore,  just  for  that  reason,  the  least 
beginning  of  righteousness  in  you  is  supremely  pre- 
cious in  His  sight.  Make  it,  then,  precious  in  your 
own.  Treasure  the  smallest  faith.  Guard  the  least 
flame  of  love.  Take  your  poor,  battered,  broken 
resolution,  smooth  it  out,  cleanse  and  confirm  it 
with  new  consecration,  set  it  up  in  your  safest  and 
most  sacred  chamber.  Do  all  this  not  desperately, 
but  hopefully;  for  God  is  strong,  eternity  is  long, 
and  that  which  lives  to-day  with  any  spark  or  fibre 
of  true  life,  has  in  it  the  promise  and  potency  of  all 
the  holiness  of  heaven. 


XIX. 

NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL   FORCES. 

"  Truth  shall  flourish  out  of  the  earth,  and  righteousness  shall  look 
down  from  heaven." — Psalms  Ixxxv.  ii. 

On  the  17th  of  September,  1656,  two  hundred  and 
twenty-nine  years  ago,  Oliver  Cromwell  delivered  a 
remarkable  speech  at  the  opening  of  the  second  pro- 
tectorate Parliament  of  England.  The  whole  speech 
is  remarkable,  but  the  close  especially  is  most  unlike 
to  anything  which  before  or  since  has  been  addressed 
to  any  national  political  assembly.  After  speaking 
on  many  things  of  public  interest,  he  suddenly  turns 
and  tells  the  representatives  of  England  that  he 
"did  read  a  psalm  yesterday,  which  truly  may  not 
unbecome  both  me  to  tell  of  and  you  to  observe." 
The  rest  of  his  speech  is  a  strange  sort  of  commen- 
tary and  meditation  on  this  85th  Psalm,  from  which 
I  take  my  text.  When  he  approaches  the  end  of  it, 
we  seem  to  hear  his  rough  voice  glow  and  tremble 
and  grow  deep  as  he  rehearses  the  great  prophecy : 
"Mercy  and  truth  are  met  together;  righteousness 
and  peace  have  kissed  each  other.  Truth  shall 
spring  out  of  the  earth,  and  righteousness  shall  look 
down  from  heaven.     Yea,  the  Lord  shall  give  that 

312 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     313 

which  is  good,  and  our  land  shall  yield  her  increase." 
Before  how  many  other  eyes  that  vista  has  been 
opened,  and  the  vision  of  these  words  has  glowed ! 
What  hope  it  has  awakened  and  kept  undyingly 
alive — this  great,  glowing  prophecy  which  falls  in 
words  of  matchless  music  at  the  end  of  the  85th 
Psalm  of  David ! 

Let  us  study  that  prophecy  a  while,  and  study  it 
in  the  only  way  in  which  a  prophecy  ever  ought  to 
be  studied,  as  an  illumination  of  present  life  and  a 
guide  to  present  conduct.  It  may  be  the  worst 
thing  possible  for  us  to  have  the  curtain  drawn 
aside,  and  be  allowed  to  revel  in  the  prospect  of  the 
glorious  days  that  are  to  be,  unless  we  turn  back, 
with  our  eyes  full  of  that  prospect,  and  understand 
more  deeply  by  its  light  the  poor,  blurred,  strug- 
gling Present  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  still  living. 
The  almost  fatal  fault  of  a  great  deal  of  personal 
religion  has  been  that  it  has  gloried  in  the  hope  of 
heaven,  but  has  not  let  that  hope  play  freely  on  the 
ordinary  life  of  earth,  to  illuminate  its  problems,  to 
rebuke  its  baseness,  and  to  inspire  its  duties.  Let 
us  not  deal  so  with  this  prophecy.  Let  us  try  to 
understand  what  sort  of  a  life  that  will  be  in  which 
truth  springs  out  of  the  earth  and  righteousness 
looks  down  from  heaven,  so  that  we  may  see  how 
far  our  life  is  from  being  that  to-day,  and  perhaps 
may  discover  how  we  can  bring  it  now  a  little  nearer 
to  the  realization  of  that  picture. 

The  point  of  the  prophecy  seems  then  to  lie  in 
this,  that  earth  and  heaven,  the  lower  and  the  higher 
world,  are  represented  as  co-operating  to  produce 


314     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

the  high  condition  which  is  promised.  There  are 
two  natural  meanings,  it  seems  to  me,  of  such  a 
representation. 

First  and  most  literally,  I  take  the  earth  to  mean 
that  world  of  forces  which  have  their  origin  in  the 
nature  of  this  familiar  planet  where  we  live.  It  is 
the  visible  and  tangible  world,  a  world  which  we 
think  that  we  understand  because  it  is  presenting 
itself  to  our  senses  all  the  time.  Heaven,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  mysterious  world  that  is  invisible, 
the  world  in  the  existence  of  which  some  men  are 
always  trying  to  convince  themselves  that  they  do 
not  believe,  but  which  the  race  of  men  is  never  able 
to  let  go, — the  great  mysterious  world  which  we  in 
general  call  the  supernatural. 

How  these  two  words,  earth  and  heaven,  repre- 
sent the  two  great  divisions  of  the  thought  of  man ! 
When  you  look  abroad  over  a  wide,  open  country, 
there  are  two  parts  of  what  you  see ;  one,  the  green 
earth  with  its  bright  fields  and  sombre  forests,  and 
rivers  and  lakes,  with  its  trees  and  houses,  fences 
and  barns,  and  all  the  clear  signs  of  man's  activity; 
and  the  other,  the  blue  sky,  the  birthplace  of  the 
winds,  the  home  of  sunlight  and  of  stars,  as  mys- 
terious and  far-away  as  the  first  one  is  close  by  and 
familiar.  And  as  the  horizon  at  once  separates 
these  two  and  joins  them  to  each  other,  and  he 
who  watches  stands  between  the  two,  between  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  and  feels  his  one  world  made 
of  the  two  together;  so  all  man's  thinking  goes  on 
between  the  natural  and  supernatural,  between  the 
simple,  definite,  familiar  operations  of  practical  life, 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     315 

the  buying  and  the  selling,  the  building  and  delving 
and  contriving,  the  social  relationships  and  govern- 
mental operations,  which  make  the  movement  of  the 
earth;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  vague,  unac- 
countable, transcendental  influences  which  come  out 
of  the  realm  of  unseen  things,  the  regions  where 
supernal  beings  live,  the  home  to  which  the  dead 
have  gone,  and  where  the  yet  unborn  are  waiting 
for  their  day  to  live,  the  heavens  and  hells,  the 
House  where  God  is  as  He  is  not  here,  the  whole 
great  universe  which  comes  not  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  eye  or  ear,  but  in  which  man  believes  by  the 
subtler  witness  which  it  bears  of  itself  directly  to 
the  soul. 

I  assume  the  existence  of  these  two  regions.  The 
first,  no  man  denies.  We  see  and  feel  it  every  day. 
The  second,  man  believes  in,  however  men  have 
now  and  then  denied  it. 

And  now  the  promise  is  that  these  two  worlds  are 
some  day  to  come  to  perfect  harmony  and  co-opera- 
tion, and  to  conspire  to  influence  the  life  of  man. 
The  truth  which  springs  out  of  the  one  shall  also 
drop  out  of  the  other.  The  great  perfection  is  to 
come  by  the  moral  unity  of  heaven  and  earth, — not 
as  something  worked  out  by  the  machinery  of  the 
lower  world,  its  government  and  society  and  trade 
and  study  gradually  accomplishing  for  itself  man's 
highest  good ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  dropped  out 
of  heaven  ready-made,  a  blessing  in  whose  accom- 
plishment the  earth  has  had  no  share ;  not  in  either 
of  these  ways,  but  as  the  result  of  their  mutual 
effort,   the   fruit   of  lower  and  higher  forces  both 


3i6     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

working  together  for  the  highest  moral  ends, — so 
will  the  "far-off  divine  event,  to  which  the  whole 
creation  moves,"  at  last  be  reached. 

Let  us  consider  very  carefully  and  clearly  just 
what  it  is  that  is  involved  in  such  a  prophecy  as  this. 
Think  what  the  promise  that  it  gives  us  is.  Think 
also  what  the  limitations  of  that  promise  are.  It 
says  to  every  man  who  is  trying  to  do  right,  and 
finding  the  struggle  very  hard — to  every  man  who, 
trying  to  do  right,  has  summoned  to  his  aid  all  the 
best  influences  which  this  earthly  life  can  furnish, 
and  who  has  learned  by  sad  experience  to  fear  that 
they  are  not  sufficient, — to  every  such  man  it  says 
that  there  are  other  influences  which  are  trying  to 
help  him  coming  out  of  higher  regions  than  this 
earth.  "The  heavens  are  helping  you,"  it  says. 
"The  world  of  spirits  is  your  ally.  The  unseen  uni- 
verse is  on  your  side.  In  ways  you  cannot  guess, 
with  an  intimacy  of  approach  which  you  can  never 
know,  righteousness  is  looking  down  from  heaven 
on  your  endeavor  to  be  a  righteous  man."  That  is 
a  splendid  assurance.  But  see  how  very  definite  it 
is.  It  is  all  moral.  It  promises  nothing  but  right- 
eousness out  of  heaven. 

Now,  when  I  think  how  men  have  dealt  with  their 
belief  in  the  unseen  world,  I  am  struck  by  the 
thought  that  what  they  have  mostly  asked  of  that 
world  has  been  something  else  than  righteousness, 
and  therefore  does  not  fall  within  the  lines  of  this 
great  promise.  Think  of  it !  The  old  astrologers 
questioned  the  stars  to  know  their  fates.  They 
waited  and  listened  night  after  night  to  hear  some 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     317 

message  out  of  the  sky,  to  tell  them  where  they 
were  to  seek  their  fortunes,  how  long  they  were  to 
live,  and  when  they  were  to  die.  The  modern 
Spiritualist  tries  to  peer  through  the  veil  which 
separates  the  living  from  the  dead,  and  what  he 
mainly  promises  himself  is  consolation,  some  miti- 
gation of  the  awful  loneliness  which  fills  his  empty 
house.  The  Christian  Scientist  thinks  he  feels  the 
whole  air  thrilling  with  power  from  the  depths  of 
the  unseen,  and  it  seems  to  be  to  him  almost  entirely 
the  power  of  physical  healing;  he  is  to  have  his 
sickness  cured.  The  great  ghost-haunted  world  has 
rung  with  inquiries  for  the  satisfaction  of  its  curiosity, 
but  certainly  not  with  cravings  for  a  purer  life  and  a 
more  steadfast  strength  against  temptation.  Wealth, 
comfort,  health,  knowledge, —  these  are  all  good 
things,  no  doubt.  If  the  unseen  world  can  give  them 
to  us,  it  is  right  that  we  should  take  them.  But  they 
are  not  the  greatest  things.  Not  one  of  them  is  abso- 
lutely necessary.  Righteousness,  goodness,  strength 
of  character,  those  are  the  only  things  which  a  true 
man  must  have,  things  which  he  cannot  live  without. 
And  so  I  cannot  help  believing  that  a  large  part  of 
man's  questioning  of  the  unseen  world  has  been 
futile  because  he  has  not  questioned  it  for  the  one 
thing  which  it  was  eager  to  bestow.  He  has  asked 
it  to  make  him  rich,  to  give  him  consolation,  to  cure 
his  sickness,  and  not  above  and  before  all  other 
things  to  give  him  righteousness. 

Here  comes  forth  one  of  the  great  glories  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Christianity  is  a  perpetual  assertion 
of  the  moral  purpose  of  the  relations  between  man 


3i8     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

and  the  unseen  world.  In  it  the  mists  grow  thin, 
the  curtain  falls.  It  is  a  revelation.  But  a  revela- 
tion of  what?  Only  and  always  of  that  regarding 
God  and  heaven  whereby  man  may  grow  better, 
braver,  stronger,  purer.  It  is  not  a  revelation  of 
the  essential  nature  of  God,  nor  of  the  conditions 
of  His  everlasting  life;  not  of  what  God  is,  but  of 
what  He  does;  yet  not  of  what  He  does  in  the  great 
universe  or  in  the  region  of  pure  power;  nor  of  how 
He  made  the  worlds  and  of  how  He  will  bring  the 
worlds  to  the  catastrophe  in  which  they  shall  perish ; 
but  of  what  He  does  to  us  to  which  our  life  ought 
to  respond;  of  how  He  loves  us,  of  how  He  com- 
mands us.  Wherever  men  have  tried  to  force  Chris- 
tianity beyond  its  appointed  purpose,  they  have 
evidently  been  doing  it  violence;  and  it  has  always 
resented  the  violence  they  did  it  by  losing  its  power, 
and  ceasing  to  give  them  its  best  blessing. 

Here  has  been  the  birthplace  of  evil  dogmatism. 
Men  have  said  to  Christianity,  "Tell  us  how  old  the 
world  is!  Tell  us  the  composition  of  the  Divine 
Being.  Tell  us  how  long  and  in  what  way  God 
means  to  punish  the  wicked.  Tell  us  what  God  re- 
quired before  He  could  forgive  mankind."  And 
always  the  answers  which  they  thought  they  got  to 
those  questions  came  to  them  hard  and  rigid,  and 
bred  in  them  bitter  and  uncharitable  dispositions. 
But  whenever  men  have  begged  of  their  great  Re- 
ligion simply  the  influence  which  should  make  them 
better  men,  saying,  "Oh,  drive  out  our  sin,  and  fill 
us  with  holiness,  with  unselfishness,  with  truthful- 
ness! "  she  has  responded  with  a  quickness  and  pro- 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     319 

fusion  which  showed  that  now,  at  least,  they  had 
touched  the  key  of  her  true  purpose;  now  they  had 
summoned  her  to  the  task  which  she  most  loved, 
and  for  which  she  recognized  that  she  was  made ! 

Is  such  a  definition  and  limitation  of  its  purpose  a 
degradation  of  our  great  Faith?  Is  it  a  demand  that 
she  shall  abdicate  the  highest  offices  and  count  her- 
self fit  only  for  a  lower  task?  Surely  not  so!  It  is 
the  crowning  of  her  with  the  hardest  duty  that  any 
power  can  undertake  upon  the  earth.  We  do  not 
know  what  force  might  be  needed  to  remove  moun- 
tains, to  pluck  the  Himalayas  from  their  seat  and 
toss  them  into  the  midst  of  the  astonished  sea;  we 
only  know  that  it  must  be  a  force  so  different  in 
kind  as  to  be  incomparable  with  the  other  kind  of 
force  by  which  a  human  nature  shall  be  changed 
down  to  its  root  and  a  bad  man  be  made  good. 
But  the  longer  we  live,  the  more  certainly  we  come 
to  know  that  no  force  of  any  kind  can  be  greater  or 
more  glorious  than  this  which  undertakes  to  regen- 
erate a  human  life.  Who  would  not  rather  trans- 
form badness  into  goodness  than  read  the  secrets  of 
the  stars  or  turn  the  ocean  from  its  bed?  So  hard 
to  do,  so  great  a  triumph  when  it  is  done,  appears 
to  us  as  we  grow  older  the  conquering  of  these  wild 
passions  and  the  bringing  out  of  the  possibilities  of 
a  human  soul! 

It  is  a  moral  power,  then,  that  the  unseen  world 
is  to  exert  upon  our  human  life.  And  then,  the 
next  question  rises ;  whether  it  is  possible  for  us  to 
know  the  nature  of  that  influence.  How  can  the 
parts  of  the  universe  which  we  do  not  see  make  it 


320     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

possible  for  us  to  live  better  lives  here  in  our  earthly 
homes?  It  is  a  great  question.  We  cannot  know 
all  its  answer.  But  we  may  know  something  of  it. 
We  may  say  at  least  this :  that  the  very  knowledge 
that  the  unseen  world  is  moral  must  bring  strength 
and  clearness  to  the  moral  life  of  any  human  being 
who  apprehends  that  truth. 

Do  you  see  what  I  mean?  Here  is  a  man  trying 
to  do  right,  and  finding  it  very  hard.  He  hears 
men  all  about  him  calling  him  a  fool  because  he 
tries.  He  sees  men  all  about  him  acting  as  if  there 
were  no  difference  of  right  and  wrong.  His  own 
heart  is  full  of  misgivings.  He  is  sorely  tempted. 
His  passions  rise  up  against  his  principles,  and  de- 
nounce them  as  tyrants.  Tell  me,  will  it  be  any- 
thing— nay,  will  it  not  be  everything — to  that  man 
if  he  can  know  that  the  right  and  wrong  which  make 
the  subjects  of  his  hourly  struggles  are  things  not 
only  of  this  narrow  earth  of  his,  but  of  the  whole 
wide  universe?  Will  it  not  be  everything  to  him  to 
know  that  there  is  no  world,  out  to  the  farthest 
bounds  of  space,  in  which  it  is  not  wrong  to  lie  or 
steal,  or  to  do  impurity ;  no  world  where  it  is  not 
good  for  any  being,  of  whatever  most  exalted  or 
degraded  sort  he  may  be,  to  tell  the  truth,  to  be 
pure,  and  to  forget  himself  in  serving  others? 

Only  suppose  the  opposite  of  that.  Suppose  that 
the  poor  creature  struggling  to  do  right,  here  upon 
our  earth,  with  so  much  here  against  him,  came  to 
know  that  all  this  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong  was  a  purely  local  thing ;  that  all  the  beings 
of  the  unseen  worlds  knew  nothing  of  it,  that  there 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     321 

was  a  whole  universe  in  which  happy  and  effective 
life  went  on  without  any  dream  of  there  being  any- 
thing disorderly  in  stealing,  or  lying,  or  murdering, 
or  being  selfish.  Would  not  his  feeble  struggle 
grow  far  feebler  still?  Would  not  morality  often 
seem  to  him  like  a  mere  provincial  prejudice? 
Would  not  his  fight  often  seem  to  him  but  a  fruit- 
less folly?  Would  not  truth  cease  to  spring  out  of 
the  earth  when  righteousness  had  ceased  to  look 
down  from  heaven? 

We  can  easily  see  how  the  same  thing  is  true  upon 
a  smaller  scale.  Here  is  some  man  in  a  barbarian 
country,  in  Timbuctoo  or  Madagascar.  A  spark  of 
divine  lire  has  fallen  into  his  heart,  and  has  kindled 
there  the  fuel  of  his  better  nature.  He  has  rebelled 
against  the  brutality  and  wickedness  by  which  he  is 
surrounded.  He  has  begun  to  struggle  for  a  better 
life.  Truth  has  sprung  out  of  the  gross  earth  of  his 
savage  circumstances.  The  savage  men  around  him 
laugh  at  him.  They  hate  him.  Even  if  their  hearts 
admire  him,  they  think  his  poor  struggle  the  most 
hopeless  dream.  Hundreds  of  times,  in  his  despon- 
dent moods,  the  poor  fellow  is  ready  to  think  so 
himself. 

Then  suppose  that  for  a  moment  the  curtain  can 
be  lifted  which  hides  from  him  the  world  of  civilized 
and  Christian  life.  Suppose  that  some  voice  finds 
its  way  across  the  seas,  to  tell  this  solitary  struggler 
that  there  are  lands  in  which  the  struggle  which  in 
his  island  seems  so  exceptionally  strange  is  the 
accepted  law  of  life;  that  there  are  lands  where  the 
things  he  seeks  are  recognized  as  the  only  worthy 


322     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

prizes  of  a  human  soul,  the  things  without  the  at- 
tainment of  which  any  Hfe  is  a  wretched  failure.  A 
breath  out  of  this  great  tempest  of  desire  for  more 
perfect  human  living,  which  we  call  civilization, 
strays  in  and  blows  with  coolness  and  refreshment 
on  his  heated  forehead.  Is  he  not  filled  with  new 
courage?  Does  not  the  impossible  grow  possible  to 
him  as  he  listens?  These  distant,  unseen  lands, 
where  higher  life  is  lived,  are  to  him  a  very  heaven. 
To  see  righteousness  looking  down  out  of  that 
heaven  makes  the  ground  under  his  feet  to  blossom 
with  new  hope.  Behold !  the  love  of  beauty,  the 
culture  of  character,  the  desire  for  progress,  the 
service  of  fellow-man — they  are  not  dreams  !  They 
are  realities !  The  best  parts  of  the  world  are  full 
of  their  realization  now.  He  who  in  barbarism 
imagines  them,  and  struggles  for  them,  has  only 
caught  sight  of  what  it  really  is  to  be  a  man. 

Is  not  our  illustration  perfect?  Must  it  not  be 
that  if  to  you  and  me  there  can  be  made  known 
simply  this  with  regard  to  heaven — not  where  it  is, 
not  what  the  blessed  souls  are  doing  there,  but  only 
this — that  there  goodness  is  the  power  of  life,  and 
that  goodness  there  is  of  the  same  essence  exactly 
as  goodness  here, — if  this  can  be  made  known  to 
us,  are  we  not  strong?  Is  there  not  in  us  then  the 
power  of  martyrdom?  Is  not  ridicule  robbed  of  its 
sting?  Is  not  our  little,  dusty  struggle  dignified 
and  glorified  when  it  is  seen  to  be  a  true  effort  of 
loyalty  to  the  same  great  Master  who  "preserves 
the  stars  from  wrong,"  and  by  whom  the  eternal 
heavens  "are  fresh  and  strong"?     Do  we  not  fight 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     323 

with  new  courage  against  our  Sisera  when  we  know, 
as  Deborah  sang  in  her  great  song,  that  the  stars 
in  their  courses  are  fighting  against  him,  too? 

Can  we  know  that?  Can  we  be  sure  of  such  a 
pervasive  morality  filling  the  universe  like  a  life- 
blood?  or  is  this  which  I  have  been  saying  only  a 
splendid  theory?  I  am  not  sure  that  there  is  not 
something  in  the  very  moral  sense  itself,  which,  to 
one  who  is  truly  in  its  power,  proclaims  its  univer- 
sality,— some  intuition  which  makes  the  struggler 
after  goodness  anywhere  absolutely  sure  that  there 
can  be  no  most  transcendental  land  wherein  that 
same  struggle  is  not  going  on.  How  that  may  be, 
I  do  not  know.  But  the  real  assurance  that  the 
universe  is  all  pervaded  by  morality  comes  to  us, 
I  believe,  not  from  that  intuition,  but  from  the 
belief  in  God,  and  therefore  has  its  full  strength 
only  when  the  belief  in  God  is  fully  strong.  This 
is  one  of  the  many  ways  in  which  religion  and 
morality  are  bound  together.  God  fills  the  universe 
with  Himself,  and  is  the  principle  of  its  life;  and 
God  is  essentially  and  necessarily  moral.  Therefore 
no  part  of  the  universe  which  He  thus  fills  with 
Himself  can  be  unmoral.  Right  and  wrong  must 
be  the  critical  distinction  everywhere,  because  He 
is  everywhere  and  everything  is  His.  That  is  the 
argument.  It  rests  on  the  identity  of  God  and  the 
essentialness  of  the  moral  element  in  His  nature. 

I  can  conceive  of  there  being  regions  which  God 
governs,  to  which  He  has  not  made  known  truths 
which  He  has  shown  to  us.  There  may  be  realms 
in    His   dominion   which    know    nothing   of    some 


324     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

manifestations  of  His  power  with  which  we  are 
most  familiar.  But  that  God  should  be  the  God  of 
any  farthest  star  which  carries  inhabitants  capable 
of  morality,  of  any  highest  heaven  or  deepest  hell ; 
and  yet,  that  those  distant  regions  know  nothing 
of  the  difference  of  right  and  wrong — that  is  in- 
credible! "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  'The  Heaven  is 
my  throne  and  the  earth  is  my  foostool.'  "  Throne 
and  footstool  are  full  of  the  nature  of  the  one  same 
God.  It  cannot  be  that  the  throne  is  ignorant  of 
that  power  of  His  Presence  which  gives  to  the  foot- 
stool its  deepest  and  highest  glory. 

Just  think  what  meaning  this  truth  gives  to  the 
Incarnation,  to  the  visible  coming  of  God  into  the 
world  in  Jesus  Christ.  Out  of  a  heaven  all  full  of 
the  power  of  morality,  a  heaven  where  the  right  is 
supremely  glorious,  and  the  wrong  is  supremely 
horrible,  the  God  in  whom  that  morality  of  the 
heavens  consists  comes  forth  into  our  earth,  where 
the  same  morality,  the  same  distinction  of  right  and 
wrong  exist,  but  far  more  feebly,  more  cloudily  and 
dimly,  "What  illumination  will  follow  wherever 
He  shall  go!"  we  say.  "How,  as  He  treads  the 
earth,  goodness  the  most  despised  will  lift  its  humble 
head,  and  wickedness,  however  splendid,  will  cower 
and  shrivel!"  It  will  be — to  return  a  moment  to 
our  illustration — it  will  be  as  if  the  citizen  of  civilized 
Europe  went  with  his  Christian  standards  to  Mada- 
gascar and  walked  among  the  savages.  The  souls 
that  dreamed  of  progress  and  of  holiness  will  know 
him  and  be  strong.  The  brutal  and  barbarian  ty- 
rants will  be  ashamed  through  all  their  brutality. 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     325 

And  think  what  will  be  the  joy  of  him  who  brings 
the  illumination.  I  love  to  think  of  the  self-con- 
sciousness of  Christ.  How  radiantly  full  of  joy  it 
must  have  been !  Even  although  the  torch  which 
He  brings  must  be  held  up  at  last  upon  a  cross, 
what  then?  The  joy  of  making  the  universe  of  His 
Father  more  perfect  in  its  harmony,  the  joy  of 
making  earth  hear  and  respond  to  the  righteousness 
of  heaven,  what  is  the  suffering  of  the  cross  to  that ! 
Oh,  if  any  of  us  could  only  be  Christ,  it  would  be  so 
easy  for  us  to  die  like  Christ !  The  cross  did  not 
increase,  but  only  manifested  His  Divinity. 

This  truth  does  not  exhaust  our  subject.  I  do  not 
doubt  for  a  moment  that  there  are  more  active  min- 
istries which  the  righteousness  of  heaven  renders  to 
the  truth  of  earth  than  those  which  belong  simply 
to  its  existence,  those  which  result  necessarily  from 
the  fact  that  the  worlds  of  unseen  life  are  moral.  I 
do  not  doubt,  though  no  man  ever  can  reduce  it  to 
an  exact  science  and  tell  its  methods  and  its  laws, — 
I  do  not  doubt  that  there  is  ever  flowing  out  a  great 
active  influence  from  all  the  worlds  in  which  right- 
eousness is  established  as  the  law  of  life,  to  help 
this  poor  world  of  ours,  and  to  help  every  soul  in  it 
that  is  trying  to  be  good.  We  are  so  slow  to  think 
that  there  are  any  ways  in  which  soul  may  help 
soul,  besides  the  few  poor  ways  we  know !  We 
limit  help  to  sight  and  sound  and  touch.  Who  can 
say,  who  can  believe,  that  it  is  not  possible  for  every 
righteous  soul  in  heaven  to  help  every  soul  striv- 
ing for  righteousness  here  on  earth,  with  a  help  just 
as  true,  though  unseen  and  unheard,  as  that  with 


326     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

which  a  strong  man  lifts  a  weak  man  who  has  fallen 
in  the  ditch,  or  a  wise  man  guides  a  foolish  man  with 
a  whisper  in  his  ear?  It  can  be  so.  No  man  can 
say  it  is  impossible.  In  highest  moods  we  feel  their 
presence  with  a  sense  deeper  than  the  senses.  The 
spirits  of  the  universe  are  helping  us;  and  most  of 
all,  the  Spirit  of  God,  in  whom  the  universe  abides 
and  is  forever  righteous  and  forever  one. 

In  such  active  ministry  of  the  unseen  worlds  to 
the  earth  in  which  we  live,  I  do  indeed  believe. 
But  now,  I  would  go  back  and  fasten  your  remem- 
brance on  that  of  which  I  have  been  mostly  speak- 
ing: The  universe  is  moral.  Even  in  their  mere 
passive  character  and  being,  the  unseen  worlds  are 
full  of  help  for  every  righteous  soul.  Tell  me,  my 
friends,  is  not  this  a  truth  for  you  to  teach  your 
children,  something  for  you  to  give  them  very  early, 
so  that  they  may  live  by  it  all  their  lives?  They  ask 
you,  perhaps  in  curious  words,  perhaps  only  in  the 
inquiry  of  wondering  faces  and  of  actions  which 
are  evidently  feeling  about  for  their  best  motives, 
why  they  should  do  right.  You  try  to  answer  them. 
You  point  them  first,  no  doubt,  to  their  own  natures. 
It  is  written  there  that  right  is  right,  and  wrong  is 
wrong,  and  that  to  do  the  right  and  not  the  wrong 
is  the  only  possible  true  life  for  them.  That  is  ab- 
solute. That  would  abide  even  if  there  were  no 
other  moral  being  in  all  the  wide  universe  except 
this  child  of  yours. 

But  the  child  is  not  the  only  moral  being.  You 
tell  him  about  God,  that  his  Heavenly  Father  wants 
him  to  be  righteous,  that  He  will  be  displeased  and 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     327 

sorry  if  His  child  is  wicked.  That  would  be  true  if 
he  and  God  were  all  alone,  if  there  were  no  other 
moral  being  in  the  universe  but  just  those  two. 
But  there  are  others,  and  so  you  go  on  and  tell  him 
how  all  the  best  men  whom  he  knows  are  struggling 
against  temptation  just  as  you  bid  him  struggle. 
Then  you  enlarge  the  field.  You  give  him  books 
to  read,  or  you  take  him  travelling  from  land  to 
land,  and  point  out  to  him  that  this  moral  struggle 
is  not  a  thing  of  his  country  or  race  alone,  but  is 
wherever  man  is  throughout  the  wide  world.  Then, 
wider  still,  you  lift  the  veil  of  History  and  show  him 
that  all  the  noble  souls  in  all  the  ages  were  moral,  too, 
all  elder  brethren  of  his  in  this  desire  to  be  good. 
You  make  yourself  a  prophet,  and  assure  him  that, 
however  man  may  change  in  future  ages,  still,  until 
man  ceases  to  be  man,  this  search  for  character  must 
be  the  endless  aspiration  of  his  race.  Then  you 
take  his  hand  and  lead  him  out  of  the  world  of  man 
into  the  world  of  lower  nature;  and  even  there  you 
let  him  see  how  a  blind  craving  for  something  which 
corresponds  to  righteousness  in  man  is  visible,  a 
struggle  to  obey  its  law  and  to  fulfil  its  purpose  even 
in  beast  and  weed.  All  this  you  do  to  make  him 
brave  and  strong. 

Have  you  done  all  you  can?  Suppose  that  then 
you  can  open  some  inner  eye  in  himself,  so  that  the 
universe  of  unseen  worlds  shall  all  be  visibly  alive 
with  this  same  struggle ;  suppose  that  you  can  un- 
stop some  inner  ear  so  that  out  of  the  farthest 
depths  of  space  shall  be  heard  the  universal  voice 
praising  righteousness  as  the  great,  the  only  worthy 


328     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

and  sufficient,  end  of  being; — have  you  not  filled  him 
with  a  strength  which  never  can  fail,  a  strength 
which  will  come  pouring  in  to  aid  him  in  many  a 
weak  moment  and  lift  him  out  of  many  a  despond- 
ing slough?  It  is  the  strength  of  infinite  companion- 
ships. His  smallest  act  of  duty  is  done  in  company, 
not  only  with  Paul  and  Plato,  but  with  natures 
whose  names  he  cannot  guess,  who  fill  the  depths 
of  space  and  the  sublimest  heights  of  heaven.  The 
breath  of  eternal  sympathy  will  lift  his  dull  resolu- 
tion as  the  winds  out  of  the  farthest  north  or  south 
lay  themselves  under  the  ship's  sluggish  sails  and 
urge  it  on  its  way. 

Three  of  the  greatest  embarrassments  which  come 
to  a  man  who,  in  public  or  in  private  life,  in  the 
great  worlds  of  government  or  men  or  in  the  little 
world  of  his  own  soul,  sets  out  to  struggle  after 
righteousness  are  these :  the  sense  of  loneliness, 
the  sense  of  unnaturalness,  and  the  sense  of  hope- 
lessness. It  seems  to  him  sometimes  as  if  he  works 
alone,  as  if  the  whole  world  around  him  cared  noth- 
ing for  that  on  which  his  heart  is  set.  It  seems 
sometimes  as  if  the  nature  of  things  sets  the  other 
way,  and  as  if,  in  everlastingly  resisting  his  own 
passions  and  the  currents  of  established  life,  he  were 
doing  something  against  nature,  something  which  is 
almost  monstrous.  And  then  these  two  impressions 
combine  to  make  a  dull  sense  of  despair,  in  which  he 
labors  on,  perhaps,  but  without  buoyancy  or  hope. 
Do  you  not  see  how  it  must  go  far  to  dissipate  these 
embarrassments  if,  on  his  struggles  after  goodness, 
righteousness  shall  look  down  from   heaven?     Lo! 


NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES     329 

he  is  not  alone !  The  universe  is  with  him.  Lo ! 
what  he  does  is  not  unnatural.  The  truest  nature 
of  things  is  all  upon  his  side.  It  is  sin  that  is  un- 
natural, not  goodness ;  and  success,  so  far  from  be- 
ing hopeless,  is  absolutely  sure,  the  surest  thing  in 
the  universe  of  God. 

This  is  what  you  are  to  teach  your  child ;  this  is 
what  you  are  to  hold  fast  to  for  yourself — the  sym- 
pathy and  companionship  of  the  unseen  worlds. 
No  doubt  it  is  best  for  us  now  that  they  should  be 
unseen.  It  cultivates  in  us  that  higher  perception 
which  we  call  "faith,"  which  is  as  truly  perception 
as  is  the  sight  of  the  eyes.  But  who  can  say  that 
the  time  will  not  come  when,  even  to  those  who  still 
live  here  upon  the  earth,  the  unseen  worlds  shall 
no  longer  be  unseen?  In  all  times  there  have  been 
men  who,  at  special  moments,  have  seemed  to  see 
beyond  the  ordinary  bounds  of  sense,  and  actually 
with  their  eyes  to  behold  the  forms  of  beings  who 
belonged  not  to  the  earth  but  to  the  heavens.  Who 
can  say  that  some  day,  centuries  off,  when  the  old 
world  shall  be  far  older  still,  and  shall  have  been  puri- 
fied by  vastly  more  of  pain  and  labor,  it  may  not  be 
given  to  men  to  see  those  beings  of  other  worlds 
than  ours  who,  even  now,  are  round  us,  and  who, 
we  know,  are  living  and  seeking  the  same  righteous- 
ness with  us? 

How  that  may  be  we  cannot  know.  But  certainly 
our  thoughts  on  this  subject  ought  to  have  thrown 
some  light  forward  into  the  great  mystery  of  death. 
It  ought  to  let  us  see  in  death  all  the  light  we  really 
need  to  see,  for  if  all  that  I  have  said  is  true,  then 


330     NATURAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES 

must  it  not  also  be  true  that  the  man  who  has  striven 
after  goodness  here,  and  at  last,  after  his  years  of 
striving  which  so  often  seemed  to  be  lonely  and 
hopeless,  dies, — is  it  not  true  that  he  goes  into  a 
companionship  and  a  certainty  which  has  been  pre- 
paring for  him  all  his  life?  The  spirit  passes  into 
other  worlds,  and  lo  !  the  faces  which  he  meets  upon 
the  shore  are  not  strange  but  familiar.  He  knows 
the  passion  in  those  eyes.  He  understands  the 
resolution  of  those  ardent  lips.  It  is  his  own  eager- 
ness for  goodness  which  he  finds  here  in  the  heaven, 
out  of  which  for  years  he  has  dimly  felt  it  looking 
down.     Death  has  brought  him  to  his  own. 

The  universe  is  large,  far  larger  than  we  think, 
but  there  is  no  portion  of  it  so  far  away,  so  splendid 
or  mysterious,  that  it  does  not  send  us  messages 
bidding  us  and  helping  us  to  be  pure  and  brave  and 
true  and  faithful  in  these  common  tasks  and  simple 
duties  which  God  has  appointed  for  us  on  the  earth. 


XX. 

WORK   AND   REST. 

"Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labor  until  the  eve- 
ning."— Psalm  civ.  23. 

We  all  suspect,  far  more  than  we  know,  how  the 
beauty  and  significance  of  the  most  familiar  things 
is  hidden  from  us  by  their  familiarity.  If  we  could 
only  see  for  the  first  time  what  we  see  for  the  ten 
thousandth,  it  would  be  so  different  to  us !  We  are 
sure  that  we  should  really  see  it  then.  And  one  of 
the  most  significant  of  things,  certainly,  if  we  could 
see  it  in  such  freshness,  would  be  the  constant  alter- 
nation of  day  and  night  in  the  natural  world,  with 
its  suggestion — and  indeed  its  requirement — of  a 
corresponding  alternation  of  work  and  rest,  of  occu- 
pation and  leisure,  in  the  life  of  man.  But  age  after 
age,  the  days  have  gone  on  shining  through  their 
golden  hours,  and  then  sinking  into  the  coolness  and 
dark  of  the  evenings ;  and  generation  after  genera- 
tion of  mankind  has  had  the  characters  of  all  its  men 
and  women  shaped  and  colored  by  this  perpetual 
ministration  of  nature,  this  mixture  of  labor  and  re- 
pose. Though  men  have  become  so  possessed  with 
the  passion  of  work  that,  if  they  could,  they  would 
have  had  a  never-setting  sun,  though  they  grudged 

331 


332  WORK  AND  REST 

the  hours  of  rest  as  if  they  were  hours  of  waste,  the 
sun  has  had  no  consideration  for  their  extravagances ; 
but  when  the  working  hours  were  over  it  has  shut 
down  its  gate  of  darkness  and  turned  the  over- 
zealous  mechanic  out  of  his  workshop,  and  the 
overzealous  farmer  out  of  his  field,  and  has  com- 
pelled each  of  them  to  rest  in  spite  of  himself. 

On  the  other  hand,  men  have  grown  tired  of  work 
and  loved  overmuch  the  dark  and  quiet  hours  in 
which  they  could  give  themselves,  to  contemplation ; 
but  once  a  day  always  the  sunlight  has  broken  in 
upon  their  dreams,  and  the  stir  and  current  of  a 
world  springing  to  work  in  every  part  of  it  has 
dragged  them  to  the  labor  that  was  better  for  them. 
Nature  is  so  healthy!  such  a  wise  mother  of  us  all! 
With  her  quiet,  persistent  hands  she  is  always  press- 
ing on  each  man's  morbidness,  and  urging  it  back 
to  health.  Our  modern  civilization  invents  its  gas- 
lights and  its  tireless  machineries  and  tries  to  turn 
night,  both  for  its  pleasure  and  its  labor,  into  day. 
And  then  comes  the  opposition,  the  protest  of 
laboring  people  insisting  that  eight  hours  or  ten 
hours  are  enough  to  work.  But,  after  all,  however 
men  may  fix  their  exact  rules  and  regulations,  it  is 
nature  and  the  God  of  nature,  it  is  the  Maker  of 
light  and  darkness  who  has  finally  decreed  the  gen- 
eral proportions  of  toil  and  rest — that  man  shall  go 
forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labor  until  the  evening, 
and  then  come  home  to  his  repose. 

Our  subject,  then,  is  Work  and  Rest  and  their 
relations  to  each  other,  which  are  thus  typified  and 
secured  by  the  perpetual  dispensation  of  the  natural 


WORK  AND  REST  333 

world.  I  am  sure  that  every  thoughtful  man  will 
have  suspected  at  least  that  there  is  nothing  that 
has  had  a  stronger  influence  in  bringing  his  character 
to  be  what  it  is,  than  the  proportions  and  relations 
which  work  and  rest  have  had  to  each  other  through 
the  course  of  his  life;  and  as  he  surveys  the  people 
about  him  he  sees  hardly  any  cause  that  has  con- 
tributed so  much  to  make  the  differences  among 
men  who  may  be  considered  to  have  started  pretty 
much  alike,  as  this  same  thing — the  different  pro- 
portions of  labor  and  leisure  in  their  lives.  If  this 
is  true,  then  these  two  parts  of  life  and  their  relation 
to  each  other  must  be  well  worth  our  study. 

And  let  us  speak  first  of  work,  the  daytime  labor 
of  men,  that  by  which  they  get  their  living.  The 
strangest  thing  about  work  is  the  way  in  which  all 
men  praise  it,  and  yet  all  men  try  to  get  away  from 
it.  There  is  no  subject  so  popular  as  the  blessedness 
of  work.  There  is  no  theory  so  universal  as  that  of 
the  wretchedness  of  not  being  compelled  to  work. 
You  may  tell  any  audience  that  the  worst  legacy  a 
father  can  leave  to  his  child  is  the  opportunity  of 
idleness,  and  all  your  audience,  rich  and  poor,  work- 
ers and  idlers  together,  will  applaud.  There  is  no 
live  man  who  does  not  feel  a  certain  excited  sense 
of  admiration,  a  certain  satisfaction,  a  certain  com- 
fort that  things  are  right,  when  he  stands  where 
men  are  working  their  hardest,  where  trade  is  roar- 
ing or  the  great  hammers  are  deafening  you  as  they 
clang  upon  the  iron.  Everywhere,  work  and  the 
approval  of  work !  and  yet  everywhere  the  desire  to 
get  away  from  work!     Everywhere,  what  all  these 


334  WORK  AND  REST 

men  we  see  are  toiling  for,  is  to  make  such  an  ac- 
cumulation of  money  that  they  shall  not  have  to 
toil  any  longer.  Everywhere,  while  the  laboring 
man  has  his  contempt  for,  he  has  also  his  envy  of, 
his  brother  man  who  owns  the  easy  fortune  and  lives 
the  easy  life.  The  dream  of  his  own  heart  is  to 
reach  that  same  privilege  for  himself. 

Now,  this  double  sense,  this  value  of  work  and 
impatience  with  work  as  they  exist  together,  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  crude  expression  in  men's  minds  of 
this  conviction,  — that  work  is  good,  that  men  de- 
generate and  rust  without  it,  and  yet  that  work  is 
only  at  its  best  and  brings  its  best  results,  is  most 
honorable  and  most  useful,  when  it  is  aiming  at 
something  beyond  itself.  This  is  the  feeling  which 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  men's  endeavors  to  escape 
from  the  labor  which  yet  they  know  and  will  main- 
tain to  be  honorable  and  beautiful, — the  feeling  that 
every  work  ought  not  to  be  satisfied  with  mere  con- 
tinuance, but  ought  to  seek  some  attainment,  ought 
not  to  expect  merely  to  go  on  forever,  but  ought 
to  expect  to  go  out  sometime  into  a  rest  and  repose 
in  which  its  true  excellence  should  be  attested. 
And  everybody  will  bear  witness  that  this  is  the 
healthiest  feeling  about  any  work  that  we  have  to 
do;  satisfaction  and  pleasure  in  doing  it,  but  ex- 
pectation of  having  it  done  some  day  and  gradu- 
ating from  it  into  some  higher  state  which  we  think 
of  as  rest.  Take  the  first  of  these  away,  and  work 
becomes  feverish  and  discontented.  Take  the  second 
away,  and  it  becomes  dull  and  deadening. 

The  real  pleasure  that  legitimately  belongs  to  the 


WORK  AND  REST  335 

doing  of  work  (a  pleasure  which  it  would  be  sad  to 
think  that  any  of  us  whose  lot  in  life  it  is  to  labor 
in  any  way  did  not  often  feel  as  we  plod  on  about 
our  business)  —  this  pleasure  is  capable  of  being 
analyzed  into  various  elements.  I  will  mention 
three,  which,  though  we  may  not  have  given  them 
our  thought,  must  have  often  helped  and  lightened 
the  doing  of  our  work.  The  first  is  the  pleasure  of 
the  mere  exercise  of  our  powers.  It  is  a  noble 
thing.  I  do  not  know  where  there  is  any  broad, 
patent  fact  which  makes  us  more  realize  that  Love, 
somewhere,  in  some  heart,  had  something  to  do 
with  the  putting  together  of  this  life  of  ours,  than 
the  great  fact  that  whatever  a  man  is  made  to  do, 
he  primarily  does  with  pleasure.  Other  things  may 
come  in  that  make  him  hate  to  do  it,  but  he  starts 
out  with  this,  that  the  power  being  in  him,  it  is 
a  joy  to  him  to  send  it  out  into  action.  And  it 
is  wonderful  how  many  mighty  and  exceptional 
achievements  there  are,  and  how  much  of  the  even, 
steady  flow  of  action  there  is,  of  which  it  is  really 
impossible  to  give  any  other  account  than  this,  that 
it  is  a  pleasure  to  human  nature  to  exercise  any 
power  of  which  it  feels  itself  possessed.  There  are 
plenty  of  merchants  who  are  working  hard  every 
day,  not  to  make  money,  for  they  have  enough,  but 
because  there  is  in  them  a  business  faculty  which  it 
is  a  pleasure  for  them  to  exercise,  just  as  it  is  a 
pleasure  for  a  fish  to  swim,  or  for  a  bird  to  fly,  or 
for  a  child  to  run  with  the  vitality  that  he  feels  in 
every  limb,  or  for  an  artist  to  paint  with  the  skill 
that  he  feels  in  his  active  brain  and  his  subtle  fingers. 


336  WORK  AND  REST 

There  are  men  at  Washington  and  at  our  State 
House  whose  pleasure  in  governing  is  purely  in  the 
use  of  the  governing  capacity  of  which  they  are 
conscious.  In  our  war,  as  in  every  war,  there  were 
soldiers  who  went  to  the  field  not  for  the  cause,  but 
for  simple  joy  in  doing  what  they  knew  they  could 
do — that  is,  to  fight  and  perhaps  command.  There 
is  an  impatience  in  an  unused  power.  It  is  cramped 
and  distressed  and  inflamed  within  us.  It  is  a  joy  to 
exercise  a  power  or  a  talent.  It  is  not  the  highest 
or  most  reasonable  joy,  but  how  deep  and  universal 
it  is!  how  it  springs  up  instinctively!  There  is  a 
healthy  pleasure  in  doing  what  each  power  that  God 
has  given  us  was  made  by  Him  to  do. 

But  this  is  not  all.  One  must  see  or  believe  that 
there  are  results  of  his  work;  or  it  is  not  in  any 
reasonable  man  to  take  permanent  pleasure  in  doing 
it.  And  there  comes  in  the  second  element  in  the 
attractiveness  of  work.  It  may  seem  at  first  as  if 
there  were  very  little  for  us  to  gather  up  here.  It 
may  seem  that  much  of  our  work  went  by  and  mani- 
fested no  results,  so  few  special  and  prominent  things 
there  are  to  which,  after  we  have  worked  for  our 
twenty,  or  thirty,  or  forty  years,  we  can  point  con- 
fidently and  declare  that  but  for  us  they  would  not 
have  been. 

And  yet,  I  am  sure,  there  are  two  convictions 
that  grow  in  the  mind  of  every  watchful  man  as  he 
gets  older :  first,  that  the  amount  of  effect  that  has 
been  produced  in  the  world  by  men's  work  has  been 
enormous,  the  face  of  nature  enormously  altered, 
and  the  condition  of  humanity  enormously  changed ; 


WORK  AND  REST  337 

and,  secondly,  that  this  enormous  effect  has  really 
been  produced  not  by  the  great  efforts  of  a  few  great 
toilers,  but  by  the  continuous,  innumerable  labors 
of  innumerable  little  workers  just  like  himself.  This 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  source  from  which  a  common 
man  is  really  able  to  believe  that  his  work  does 
something,  and  so  to  take  pleasure  in  his  little  labor 
because  of  its  indubitable  results.  The  coral  insect 
sees  the  great  reef  breasting  the  sea,  which  millions 
of  little  creatures,  with  no  greater  gift  of  size  than 
he,  have  built ;  and  so  he  creeps  up  and  lays  his 
stiffening  frame  upon  the  pile,  sure  that  even  such 
a  bulk  as  his  will  not  be  lost.  The  worker  in  some 
branch  of  charity  sees  that  the  great  condition  of 
the  human  race  has  risen  on  the  whole;  whole 
ledges  of  humanity  that  used  to  be  under  the  water 
now  stand  out  in  the  sun ;  and  he  sees  that  it  has 
not  been  done  by  one  or  two  giants  giving  one  or 
two  great  lifts,  but  by  the  constant  help  of  insignifi- 
cant man  by  insignificant  man  all  through  the  cen- 
turies ;  and  so  he  knows  that  he  is  doing  something 
when  he  lays  down  his  life  or  some  part  of  his  life 
for  his  brethren — something  that  will  show,  although 
he  shall  not  see  it ;  something  that  will  tell,  although 
he  shall  not  hear  it.  Sometimes  we  feel  how  little 
men  have  done  in  the  world ;  but  oftener  we  feel 
how  much  they  have  done,  and  rejoice  in  adding 
our  grain  of  sand  to  the  great  pile  that  is  forever 
building. 

The  third  element  of  reasonable  pleasure  in  work 
is  the  change  and  advance  which  it  brings  in  our 
knowledge  of  ourselves,  and  in  our  own  characters. 


338  WORK  AND  REST 

If  there  were  not  something  of  this  kind,  I  do  not 
think  any  reasonable  man  could  go  on  working  day 
after  day  and  be  contented.  Work  would  grow  stale 
and  disgusting.  Merely  to  exercise  powers  that  re- 
mained the  same  after  the  thousandth  exercise  that 
they  were  after  the  first ;  and  merely  to  produce  re- 
sults like  a  machine  that  is  no  more  perfect  when  its 
millionth  nail  is  added  to  the  heap  than  when  it 
dropped  its  second  or  its  third ; — neither  of  those 
could  satisfy  the  man  conscious  of  a  character,  con- 
scious of  himself.  It  is  in  the  blessed  power  of  work 
to  make  a  man  first  know  himself,  and  then  grow 
beyond  himself,  that  its  great  attractiveness  for  all 
the  best  sort  of  men  must  lie.  I  go  to  work  proud 
and  confident ;  I  find  how  weak  I  am  and  I  grow 
humble.  That  is  itself,  or  ought  to  be,  a  joy.  The 
new  joy  of  humility — alas,  for  the  man  who  never 
tasted  it !  It  is  a  coming  home  to  facts.  It  is  a 
getting  rid  of  delusions.  I  have  found  the  blessed 
strong  footing  of  humility.  I  have  got  the  hard, 
barren  rocks  away,  and  have  got  down  to  the  soft 
rich  ground  in  which  good  seed  can  grow.  It  is  rare 
to  see  a  really  working  man  who  is  proud,  and  rare 
to  see  a  really  idle  man  who  is  not  proud.  And  I 
am  not  theorizing.  I  am  only  speaking  the  truth  of 
multitudes  of  experiences  when  I  say  that  for  a  real 
man  there  is  no  joy  in  life  so  great  as  getting  rid  of 
the  false  conceits,  concealments,  and  necessities  of 
pride  and  coming  down  to  the  frank,  solid,  free 
ground  of  humility. 

These,  then,  are  the  legitimate  sources  of  pleasure 
in  work.     I  do  not  say  that  these  are  what  make  all 


WORK  AND  REST  339 

men  work,  and  keep  them  from  idleness.  Lower 
compulsions  come  in.  In  a  community  like  ours 
the  two  first  things  that  keep  men  at  their  labor  are 
necessity  and  shame.  Men  cannot  afford  to  be  idle 
where  wealth  so  easily  changes  hands,  and  where  no 
one  will  give  them  a  living  which  they  do  not  earn 
for  themselves.  And  men  have  not  the  face  to  be 
idle  where  this  universal  necessity  has  established  a 
universal  esteem  for  work.  I  do  not  despise  either 
of  these  compulsions.  Better  that  any  idle  hands 
among  us  should  be  set  to  toil  by  necessity  or 
shame  than  that  they  should  lie  always  in  the  lap; 
but  if  your  work  is  to  be  anything  more  than  a  task 
to  you,  somewhere  or  other  these  three  things  must 
come  in  to  lift  it :  It  must  really  call  out  your 
powers ;  you  must  be  able  really  to  think  of  it  as 
effective  and  useful,  and  you  must  see  out  of  it  some 
fruit  of  humility  and  character  in  yourself. 

I  am  glad  to  preach  to  a  congregation  of  men  who 
work;  I  should  not  know  how  to  preach  to  any 
others.  Every  morning  your  house  doors  open  to 
let  you  out  either  from  the  luxury  or  from  the 
poverty  of  your  home,  into  a  day  of  labor.  Every 
morning  these  men  refresh  the  old  experience  of 
David's  Psalm  and  with  light  heart  or  heavy,  with 
joy  in  it  or  hate  of  it,  "Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work 
and  to  his  labor."  It  makes  one's  heart  almost 
ache  as  he  thinks  back  how  long  this  has  been  going 
on.  It  seems  as  if  it  were  terrible  that  so  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  millions  of  men  have  lived 
and  worked ;  and  yet  we,  coming  onto  the  earth  at 
this  late  day,  have  rushed  in  at  once,  with  the  old 


340  WORK  AND  REST 

instinct  grown  strong  with  hereditation  and  never 
relaxed  necessity,  have  scrambled  among  the  graves 
of  our  fathers  for  the  tools  they  dropped  beside  them 
as  they  stepped  down  wearily  into  them,  and  have 
gone  to  work  as  freshly  as  if  we  were  the  first  gen- 
eration that  ever  discovered  what  a  grand  working 
place  this  old  world  is!  It  is  terrible  to  think  of 
all  this  if  we  remember  what  multitudes  of  those 
workers  hated  the  work  they  did,  loathed  it,  and 
were  crushed  by  it,  got  neither  pleasure  nor  culture 
out  of  it,  and  died  killed  by  their  work  in  soul  as 
well  as  body.  "Therefore  I  went  about  to  cause 
my  heart  to  despair  of  all  the  labor  which  I  took 
under  the  sun," — so  wrote  the  despairing  soul  in  the 
Ecclesiastes,  and  many  another  despondent  heart 
has  taken  up  his  dreary  words. 

But  yet,  if  we  are  right,  if  work  has  in  it  these 
sources  of  joy,  real,  pure,  untainted  with  anything 
of  evil,  then  the  terror  of  it  is  gone  for  any  worker 
that  can  truly  find  these  fountains.  Then  we  are 
not  entering  into  an  entailed  curse  of  our  fathers 
when  we  come  out  and  find  work  waiting  for  us  just 
as  soon  as  our  hands  are  big  enough  to  hold  the  in- 
struments of  labor;  we  are  rather  coming  into  a 
garden  of  blessing,  broad,  open,  rich,  which  was 
stocked  with  all  culture  for  them,  and  is  now  offering 
its  pleasures  freely  to  us  their  children.  The  sky 
with  tireless  benevolence,  and  the  ground  with  pa- 
tient welcome,  see  us  coming  so  late  with  the  same 
old  monotonous  demands,  and  are  as  cordial  in 
their  greeting  and  as  kindly  in  their  care  for  us  as 
they  were  to  Adam  and  Seth  and  Enoch,  and  the 


WORK  AND  REST  341 

others  who  came  to  them  when  they  were  fresh  and 
young. 

I  wish  that  I  could  make  the  young  men  whose 
lot  it  is  to  be  workers  know  and  believe  that  work 
is  not  necessarily  pleasant  nor  necessarily  drudgery. 
Your  work  has  in  it  great,  deep,  inexhaustible  sources 
of  delight,  if  it  is  capable  of  giving  broad  play  to 
your  good  human  powers,  and  of  leading  to  some 
true  solid  results,  and  of  making  you  humble.  Dis- 
trust no  work  because  men  call  it  "low  "  ;  but  dis- 
trust any  work,  however  high  men  call  it,  that  will 
not  do  these  three  things  for  you.  Distrust  and 
dread  any  work  which  cramps  instead  of  letting  out 
your  faculties,  or  which  brings  out  your  meanest 
faculties  and  leaves  your  noblest  ones  untouched, 
or  any  work  which  you  are  sure  can  add  nothing  to 
the  sum  of  good  in  the  world.  It  is  not  the  size  but 
the  solidity  of  the  contribution  that  you  must  look 
to;  a  single  grain  of  sand  is  as  solid  as  a  mountain. 
Distrust  also  any  work  the  doing  of  which  makes 
you  proud,  and  so,  blinding  you  to  yourself,  makes 
you  weak.  A  pleasure  in  using  our  powers,  a  belief 
in  results,  and  a  growing  humility, ^these  are  the 
sanctifications  and  salvations  of  work,  and  may  make 
the  life  of  the  hod-carrier  or  the  street-sweeper  bright 
and  elevating. 

These  are  our  thoughts  of  work  and  of  its  privi- 
leges. And  now,  as  we  look  around  upon  the  world 
we  live  in,  we  see  how  all  of  nature  is  built  to  co- 
operate with  these  great  purposes  of  labor,  and  to 
bring  out  the  pleasure  which  legitimately  belongs 
to  every  act  of  faithful  work.     The  delight  in  the 


342  WORK  AND  REST 

sheer  exercise  of  powers  finds  sympathy  in  every 
attempt  of  nature,  by  her  resistances  and  discourage- 
ments, to  bring  those  powers  out  to  their  fullest. 
The  desire  to  produce  results  is  helped  by  a  ready 
nature  always  ready  to  submit  to  and  be  acted  upon 
by  man.  And  the  self-culture  of  work  is  aided  by 
every  rebuke  with  which  nature  convinces  the  work- 
ing man  of  his  limitations  and  his  littleness.  This 
outer  world,  with  all  its  helps  and  hindrances,  is 
saying  to  man,  "Work,  for  there  is  happiness  and 
growth  in  working.  It  is  good.  It  is  what  you  are 
here  for.  I  will  help  you.  For  this  the  daily  sun- 
light rises  in  the  east  and  shines  through  all  its 
course." 

But  now  we  come  to  the  other  part  of  our  subject. 
If  we  look  to  the  arrangements  of  Nature  for  indi- 
cations of  what  man's  life  is  meant  to  be,  we  see  at 
once  that,  bravely  as  she  has  provided  for  his  work, 
she  has  not  thought  of  him  only  as  a  working  being. 
She  has  set  her  morning  sun  in  the  sky  to  tempt — 
nay,  to  summon  him  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his 
labor,  to  make  him  ashamed  of  himself  if  he  loiters 
and  shirks  at  home ;  but  she  has  limited  her  daylight, 
she  has  given  her  sun  only  his  appointed  hours,  and 
the  labor  and  work  are  always  to  be  only  "until  the 
evening."  Rest  as  truly  as  work  is  written  in  her 
constitution.  Rest,  then,  as  much  as  work  is  an 
element  of  life.  By  his  rest  as  well  as  by  his  work 
every  man  may  be  estimated  and  judged.  Indeed, 
it  seems  as  if  a  man  could  be  judged  better  by  his 
resting  than  by  his  working  hours.  He  is  less  arti- 
ficial and  more  spontaneous  then,  and  his  character 


WORK  AND  REST  343 

has  freer  play.  Who  of  us  does  not  feel  that  he 
would  know  more  of  a  man's  real  character,  of  the 
true  personal  qualities  that  are  in  him,  if  he  knew 
how  he  spent  his  evenings  than  even  if  he  knew 
wholly  how  he  was  occupied  during  his  days? 

If  we  pass,  then,  from  talking  about  work  to  speak 
of  the  Divinely  appointed,  the  naturally  recurring 
periods  of  rest  in  a  man's  life,  we  must  try  to  esti- 
mate their  value  not  to  the  body  but  to  the  mind 
and  soul.  We  want  to  think  not  of  night  as  the 
time  of  sleep,  but  of  evening  as  the  time  of  leisure. 
And  here,  too,  let  me  make  three  suggestions  of  the 
value  of  rest  as  I  did  of  the  value  of  work.  And, 
first,  this  daily  drawing  of  the  curtain  between  man 
and  his  active  labors  represents  and  continually  re- 
minds us  of  the  need  of  the  internal  as  well  as  the 
external  in  our  lives.  It  brings  up  to  us  our  need, 
by  bringing  up  to  us  our  opportunity,  of  meditation, 
of  contemplation.  For  active  life  is  always  tending 
to  get  shallow.  It  is  always  forgetting  its  motives, 
forgetting  its  principles,  forgetting  what  it  is  so 
busy  for,  and  settling  itself  into  superficial  habits. 
Do  we  not  know  that,  every  one  of  us?  No  work 
is  so  sacred  that  it  can  escape  the  danger.  Buying 
and  selling,  legislating,  doctoring,  preaching,  teach- 
ing,— they  are  all  occupations  which  are  capable  of 
being  done  only  from  the  muscles  outward.  And 
just  as  God  was  always  taking  those  Hebrews  of 
His,  after  they  had  been  tossed  and  beaten  about  in 
a  great  war,  full  of  wild,  absorbing  activity,  and  put- 
ting His  hand  upon  them  as  it  were,  and  hushing 
their  history  into  one  of  those  calm  evening  periods 


344  WORK  AND  REST 

of  which  we  read  in  the  frequently  recurring  phrase, 
"the  land  had  rest  forty  years";  just  as  He  took 
his  chief  saints,  Moses,  Elijah,  Paul — nay,  just  as 
Jesus  Christ  went  out  of  activity  into  silence  and 
quiet  and  retirement;  so  God  shuts  us  out  from  our 
work  and  bids  us  daily  think  what  the  heart  of  our 
work  is,  what  we  are  doing  it  for.  If  this  is  the 
meaning  of  the  evening — and  no  man  sees  the  day- 
light sink  away  and  the  shadows  gather  without 
sensitively  feeling  some  such  meaning  in  it — then 
surely  we  need  it. 

It  sometimes  seems  as  if,  if  the  whole  world  could 
stop  one  hour,  and  sit  still  and  think  what  it  is 
about,  it  could  start  off  again  so  much  more  wisely. 
There  is  so  much  unreasonable  work  doing.  There 
are  so  few  of  us  who  ever  do  really  meditate,  who 
ever  contemplate  the  spiritual  reasons  and  conse- 
quences of  the  things  that  we  are  doing!  We  put 
that  off  until  we  get  to  heaven,  which  we  idly  picture 
to  ourselves  as  a  place  of  endless  leisure.  We  will 
not  use  the  calm  and  peace,  the  daily  heaven,  which 
God  has  scattered  into  all  our  days.  We  light  the 
gas  and  kill  the  evening  by  making  believe  that  it  is 
daylight  still. 

This  we  do  far  too  much,  and  yet  we  all  do  medi- 
tate a  little ;  and  it  is  hard  to  see  how  we  could  ever 
do  it  at  all  if  life  were  one  broad  glare  of  sunlight, 
never  sinking  into  the  dusk  where  one  can  not  see 
to  work  and  must  gather  himself  together,  "recol- 
lect," as  we  say,  his  scattered  life,  and  look  with  his 
spirit  at  the  hearts  and  souls  of  those  things  whose 
outsides  his  hands  have  been  handling  all  the  day. 


WORK  AND  REST  345 

The  value  of  the  evening  comes,  of  course,  from  its 
relation  to  the  daylight.  The  worth  of  meditation 
depends  upon  its  connection  with  activity.  A  world 
all  evening  would  be  bad  and  morbid.  The  life  that 
tries  to  be  all  contemplative  grows  feeble  and  shal- 
low in  its  own  way.  Nature  has  taught  us  our  true 
culture  when  she  has  bound  the  periods  of  action 
and  the  periods  of  contemplation  close  to  each 
other,  and  bidden  us  complete  our  life  out  of  the 
two  together.  And  the  man  surely  suffers  who  de- 
spises either. 

And  then  again,  the  presence  of  the  evening,  or 
the  element  of  leisure  in  our  lives,  not  merely  off- 
sets our  working  time  with  a  time  of  thought  and 
contemplation,  but  it  also  mitigates,  even  in  our 
working  hours,  the  absoluteness  with  which  our 
work  tries  to  rule  us.  I  am  sure  you  business  men 
will  own  that  there  is  danger  of  a  man's  being  too 
much  and  too  purely  a  business  man.  I  am  sure 
that  here,  in  our  city,  where  we  have  been  and  are 
still  blessed  with  the  example  and  influence  of  so 
many  merchants,  who,  while  they  have  been  "not 
slothful  in  business,"  have  been  "fervent  in  spirit"; 
who  have  had,  that  is,  burning  in  their  own  bosoms 
and  have  lighted  in  the  lives  of  others,  ardent  and 
glowing  interest  in  spiritual  things — in  art,  in  educa- 
tion, in  literature,  in  philanthropy,  and  in  religion 
— I  am  sure  that  here  I  may  claim  and  you  will 
allow  that,  for  every  active  business  man's  best  good 
it  is  desirable,  it  is  necessary,  that  he  should  have 
some  intellectual  or  spiritual  sympathy  outside  of 
his  business,  which  shall  be  the  resource  of  his  life, 


346  WORK  AND  REST 

where  he  can  go  for  the  water  of  refreshment  and 
life  that  will  keep  him  from  stiffening  into  a  machine. 

I  am  sure  that  we  can  all  see  the  difference  be- 
tween the  men  who  have  and  the  men  who  have 
not  such  an  interest  to  resort  to ;  we  feel  it  the 
moment  that  we  touch  their  different  lives.  The 
one  life  is  hard  and  hollow;  the  other  is  soft,  elastic, 
and  full.  The  old  Jews  used  to  have  (and  I  do  not 
know  but  they  have  still)  a  rule  that,  however  in- 
tellectual or  spiritual  a  child's  life  might  be  destined 
to  become,  he  should  be  taught  some  self-support- 
ing trade,  so  that,  however  it  fared  with  the  soul, 
the  body  might  not  starve.  It  was  a  good  rule  cer- 
tainly. But  the  other  rule  would  be  good,  too,  if  it 
could  be  observed, — that,  however  material  a  child's 
life  was  to  be,  it  should  be  inspired  with  some  defi- 
nite spiritual  or  intellectual  interest,  so  that,  how- 
ever it  might  fare  with  the  body,  the  spirit  should 
not  starve.  There  is  nothing  one  would  want  to 
urge  more  strongly  on  young  men  just  being  swept 
into  the  intense  absorption  of  mercantile  life  than 
the  necessity  of  winning  and  keeping  some  resource, 
some  place  of  mental  resort,  some  interest  or  study 
or  liberal  occupation  of  some  sort,  to  which  his  tired 
life  may  always  resort  to  find  refreshment  and  re- 
cruit its  spring.  This  is  the  evening  element  in  life. 
There  are  multitudes  of  merchants  who  have  turned 
to  drudges,  and  drudged  along  in  a  work  that  was  a 
slavery  to  them,  just  for  the  lack  of  some  such  re- 
sort, some  interest  outside  of  their  business,  to 
which  they  could  retire. 

To  multitudes  of  people  Religion  has  been  just 


WORK  AND  REST  347 

this  haven  of  retreat,  where  the  soul  put  in  out  of 
the  storms  of  life  for  shelter  and  repair.  Nobody- 
can  begin  to  estimate  how  much,  to  our  New  Eng- 
land ancestors, — hard-worked,  poor,  forced  down  to 
continual  contact  with  the  most  prosaic  and  hard 
details, —  has  been  the  religion  which  has  always 
filled  their  lives  with  softer  influence,  and  renewed 
their  courage,  and  kept  the  better  part  of  them 
alive.  Think  of  the  village  and  farm  life  of  our 
bleak  coast  and  hills — what  would  it  have  been  with- 
out the  softening  and  elevating  and  recruiting,  the 
letting  up  of  work  and  letting-in  of  visions,  that 
came  from  the  meeting-house  upon  the  hill,  and  the 
Bible  reading  and  the  prayer  and  the  psalm-singing 
beside  the  cottage  hearth?  We  may  forget  much 
that  was  in  their  creed,  we  may  learn  more  broad 
and  genial  ways  of  worshipping  and  thinking,  but 
woe  to  us  if  we  shut  up  and  forget  that  door  which 
they  kept  open  from  the  life  of  man  into  the  life  of 
God !  Woe  to  us  if  we  let  our  work  lose  the  in- 
spiration that  comes  from  knowing  that  we  do  it  for 
our  Heavenly  Father,  and  not  for  ourselves!  We 
stand  in  danger  of  letting  that  knowledge  go,  be- 
cause work  so  absorbs  us  and  enchains  us  by  its  own 
sheer  power;  but  yet  we  know  that  that  slavery  to 
work,  which  we  are  aware  is  growing  in  ourselves, 
is  not  the  highest  or  most  noble  type  of  life  as  we 
behold  it  in  other  men.  We  know  that  the  man  to 
whom  work  is  really  sanctifying  and  helpful,  is  the 
man  who  has  God  behind  his  work ;  who  is  able  to 
retire  out  of  the  fret  and  hurry  of  his  work  into  the 
calmness  and  peace  of  Deity,  and  come  out  again 


348  WORK  AND  REST 

into  his  labor  full  of  the  exalted  certainties  of  the 
Redemption  of  Christ  and  the  Love  of  God  ;  to  make 
work  sweet  and  fresh  and  interesting  and  spirit- 
ual by  doing  it  not  for  himself,  nor  for  itself,  but 
for  the  Saviour  in  whom  he  lives.  This  is  the 
work  that  "drinks  of  the  brook  in  the  way,"  and 
lifts  up  its  head  under  any  heat  and  against  any 
wind. 

There  is  one  other  recollection  which  it  is  most 
necessary  for  men  to  keep  in  mind,  but  which  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  men  could  keep  except  under  some 
sort  of  arrangement  like  that  in  which  we  live.  It 
is  hard  to  see  how,  were  it  not  for  the  continually 
repeated,  daily  stoppages  of  work,  we  could  remem- 
ber, as  we  need  to  remember,  the  great  close  of 
work  which  is  coming  to  every  one  of  us,  and  may 
be  very  near.  I  picture  to  myself  a  world  without 
an  evening,  a  world  with  an  unsetting  daylight,  a 
sun  with  a  lidless  eye,  and  with  men  who  never  tired 
at  their  tasks ;  and  it  seems  as  if  death  in  a  world 
like  that,  the  snatching  of  this  man  or  that  man  out 
of  the  ranks  of  the  unintermitted  labor,  would  be  so 
much  more  terrible  and  mysterious  than  it  is  now; 
when  once  a  day,  for  many  years,  we  have  learned 
that  work  was  not  meant  to  last  always,  and  have 
had  to  drop  our  tools  as  if  in  practice  and  rehearsal 
for  the  great  darkness  when  we  are  to  let  them  go 
forever.  How  constant  this  suggestion  has  been 
everybody  knows.  We  are  sure  that  it  would  have 
come  into  our  own  minds,  if  no  one  had  ever  hinted 
it,  if  we  had  never  sung  the  hymn  in  which  it  is 
embodied : 


WORK  AND  REST  349 

The  day  is  past  and  gone  ; 

The  evening  shades  appear  ; 
Oh,  may  we  all  remember  well, 

The  night  of  death  draws  near. 

So  once  a  day  our  hold  on  work  is  loosened,  and 
the  great  setting-free  which  is  to  come  is  prophesied, 
and  its  power  is  anticipated  to  us. 

Some  may  wonder  whether  that  is  a  good  thing 
for  us.  I  think  a  great  many  people  honestly  doubt 
whether  it  is  a  good  thing  for  men,  while  they  are 
alive,  to  remember  that  they  have  got  to  die.  And 
with  the  cruel,  dark,  false  thoughts  of  death  which 
are  so  plentiful,  which  many  minds  cling  to  as  the 
most  religious  thoughts,  certainly  it  would  be  better 
for  men  not  to  think  of  death  at  all.  Such  thoughts 
must  paralyze  them.  Better,  far  better,  that  they 
should  go  on  and  do  their  work  bravely,  as  if  they 
never  were  to  die,  than  to  be  so  frightened  with  the 
inevitableness  of  dying  that  work  should  seem  to  be 
waste,  and  the  hands  should  drop  idle. 

But  if  a  man  can  think  rightly,  can  think  like  a 
Christian  about  death,  can  think  about  it  as  the  go- 
ing home  of  the  scholar  who  has  been  off  at  school, 
as  the  setting  free  of  the  partial  activity  into  some 
intense  and  extensive  exercise  which  it  is  glorious 
while  it  is  bewildering  to  think  of;  then  the  more  a 
man  thinks  about  death  the  better.  He  will  do  his 
work  all  the  more  faithfully  for  every  look  that  he 
takes  through  that  gate  which  is  iron  on  the  outer 
side  and  golden  on  the  inner.  Let  me  merely  point 
out,  before  I  close,  two  or  three  of  the  ways  in 
which  it  will  make  a  man  more  faithful  in  his  work 


350  WORK  AND  REST 

to  remember   that   he   is  going   to   die,    if  he  can 
remember  it  like  a  Christian. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will  help  him  to  anticipate 
already  the  judgments  of  death  and  eternity.  I 
know,  you  know,  that  we  are  all  thinking  things 
about  our  fellow-men,  which  we  never  can  think  of 
them  when  the  mere  disguises  of  this  life  have 
passed  away.  We  are  slighting  poor  men  for  their 
poverty ;  we  are  honoring  rich  men  for  their  wealth ; 
we  are  praising  bad  men  for  their  smartness ;  we  are 
holding  back  our  applause  from  men  we  know  are 
good,  because  they  are  unpopular;  we  are  valuing 
men  for  little  useful  knacks  and  tricks  that  they 
possess,  and  not  for  the  honesty,  the  truthfulness, 
the  purity  of  their  hearts.  We  know  that  these 
judgments  of  ours  are  temporary  and  false ;  we  know 
that,  when  we  come  to  die,  we  shall  see  the  beauty 
that  is  in  some  rough  shell  which  we  slight  now,  and 
the  baseness  that  is  in  some  pleasant  form  to  which 
we  cringe  and  fawn.  If  we  saw  death  coming,  it 
would  change  our  judgments.  I  am  sure  that,  if  we 
really  felt  now  that  we  were  going  to  die,  we  should 
be  braver  and  more  independent.  There  is  a  sub- 
lime freedom  in  death.  What  does  the  dying  man 
care  for  the  tyrannies  of  gossip  and  conventionality 
that  have  ruled  him  for  his  threescore  years?  Their 
chains  drop  off  him  the  moment  he  hears  the  great 
call.  And  if  we  really  could  live  in  the  anticipation 
of  that  time  of  freedom,  we  might  be  freer  and 
braver  now.  To  some  people  it  seems  as  if  it  must 
be  dreadful  to  think  much  of  death,  because  death  is 
such  a  mournful  thing.     But  there  have  been  deaths 


WORK  AND  REST  351 

that  have  been  as  triumphant  and  jubilant  as  the 
blowing  of  trumpets,  and  other  deaths  that  have 
been  serene  as  the  opening  of  a  flower;  and  if  it  will 
help  to  make  our  death  like  either  of  these  to  look 
at  it  and  remember  that  it  is  coming,  then  the  more 
every  evening,  which  is  a  day's  death,  can  bring  it 
up  to  us,  the  better. 

And  again,  the  remembrance  that  we  are  to  die 
some  day,  by  and  by,  must  help  us  to  keep  the 
spiritual  part  of  our  occupation  real  and  valuable 
before  us  always.  Our  occupation,  whatever  it  is, 
is  like  ourselves,  inward  and  outward.  It  has  its 
body  and  its  soul.  Now,  to  remember  that  the 
time  is  coming  (and  may  come  to-morrow)  when 
the  soul  in  us  is  to  be  everything,  to  see  as  it  comes 
up  towards  us  the  day  that  is  to  break  the  power  of 
the  form  over  the  spirit,  the  day  when,  not  the 
form,  but  the  purpose  and  the  power  of  our  work, 
is  to  go  with  us  into  Eternity, — that  must  weaken  a 
little  the  bondage  that  the  visible  has  over  us,  must 
let  us  know  something  of  the  sublime  spirituality 
with  which  St.  Paul  said,  "I  look  not  at  the  things 
which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are  not 
seen;  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal, 
but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal." 

And  yet,  finally,  the  very  fact  that  the  form  of 
our  work  is  so  shortly  to  be  left  behind  has,  strangely 
enough,  another  effect  upon  us, — to  make  us  all  the 
more  earnest  to  deal  with  it  faithfully  while  it  re- 
mains. We  value  the  spirit  of  our  occupation  be- 
cause that  is  to  go  on  with  us  forever;  we  value  its 
form  because  our  time  to  work  on  it  is  short.     This 


352  WORK  AND  REST 

last  is  the  meaning  of  those  golden  words  of  Christ. 
"I  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  me  while 
it  is  called  to-day ;  for  the  night  cometh  in  which  no 
man  can  work."  An  earnest  faithfulness  to  our 
tasks,  and  a  complete  superiority  to  our  tasks, — 
these  two  seem  to  me  to  blend  only  in  the  character 
of  the  man  who  lives  in  the  sight  of  death  and  of 
eternity,  the  man  who  works  all  the  day,  knowing 
that  the  evening  is  coming. 

We  want  to  work  every  day  so  that  we  can  rest ; 
for  work  and  rest  belong  together.  We  want  to 
gather,  out  of  every  active  service  of  God,  deep 
thoughts  of  Him  for  our  hours  of  contemplation. 
We  want  to  come  to  self-knowledge  by  well-propor- 
tioned labor  and  retirement.  And  then,  as  the  day 
of  life  grows  dark,  and  the  light  fades  in  the  east 
and  gathers  in  the  west,  we  want  to  go  from  time 
into  eternity  without  a  fear  or  a  regret ;  but  with 
hearts  full  of  memories  and  hopes,  full  of  expecta- 
tion of  the  new  service  which  our  Lord  has  for  us 
to  do  on  the  other  side  of  the  darkness,  where  we 
shall  see  Him  face  to  face. 


XXI. 

NEW   WINE    IN    NEW   BOTTLES. 

*'  Neither  do  men  put  new  wine  into  old  bottles  :  else  the  bottles 
break,  and  the  wine  runneth  out  and  the  bottles  perish  :  but  they 
put  new  wine  into  new  bottles,  and  both  are  preserved." — Mat- 
thew ix.  17. 

It  is  the  first  Sunday  of  a  new  year,  and  there 
are  none  of  us,  I  think,  who  are  not  feeling  some- 
thing of  that  sense  of  newness  and  freshness  which 
belongs  to  such  a  time.  It  is  a  strange  and  uni- 
versal thing — this  constant  desire  of  men  to  make  a 
fresh  start.  They  create  epochs,  or  starting  mo- 
ments; and  those  which  nature  and  time  furnish, 
such  as  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  or  the  birth  of  a  new 
year,  are  eagerly  seized  upon  to  mark  a  new  begin- 
ning, to  separate  old  failures  or  old  partial  successes 
from  the  completer  success  which  we  never  get  tired 
of  expecting  in  the  future.  What  would  life  be 
without  its  nights  to  rub  the  blurred  slate  clean,  and 
its  returning  mornings,  each  bringing  the  fresh  spring 
and  vigor  and  hopefulness  almost  of  a  new  creation? 
This  pleasure  in  a  fresh  start  comes  partly  from 
man's  disappointment  in  his  past,  and  partly  from 
the  way  in  which  every  best  satisfaction  of  the  past 
has  always  suggested  another  satisfaction  completer 

353 


354  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

than  itself,  to  which  it  has  spurred  on  his  hopes. 
And  so  it  belongs  not  to  one  class  of  minds  or  ex- 
periences alone;  but  all  men,  the  despondent  and 
the  sanguine,  those  who  have  failed  and  those  who 
have  succeeded,  are  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  start 
again;  and 'so  the  New  Year's  dawn  is  welcome  to 
us  all. 

The  world  has  learned  to  date  its  years  from  the 
coming  of  Jesus  Christ,  Then,  it  seems  to  us,  many 
things  became  new ;  as  if  the  great  caravan  of  hu- 
manity, which  had  been  toiling  on  for  centuries  in 
one  direction,  having  rested  itself,  as  it  were,  in  the 
stagnation  of  the  century  that  preceded  Him,  started 
anew;  and  ever  since  has  moved  in  new  directions, 
on  a  march  of  which  He  seems  to  be  everywhere  the 
Leader.  As  we  look  back  to  His  time,  we  can  see 
many  signs  that  some  sense  of  this  newness,  which 
His  life  had  brought,  was  in  the  minds  of  men  who 
felt  His  influence.  There  are  clusters  of  figures 
which  seem  to  be  always  representing  this  idea:  an 
axe  laid  to  the  root  of  a  tree,  that  it  may  come  down 
and  a  sounder  one  grow  in  its  place;  a  leaven  that 
has  entered  into  a  dead,  heavy  mass,  and  made  it 
stir  with  life ;  an  absent  householder  that  has  come 
to  live  on  his  estate;  and  finally,  a  new  vintage  just 
brought  in  from  the  wine-press,  full  of  the  ferment 
of  its  new,  tumultuous  life.  It  is  this  last  figure 
which  Christ  is  using  in  our  text.  As  He  thinks  of 
His  own  new  influence,  He  is  compelled  to  think 
also  how  it  will  adapt  itself  to  the  old  ways  and 
thoughts  and  habits  which  it  finds.  To  put  this 
new  life  into  the  old  world  seems  to  be  like  taking 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  355 

one  of  the  half-tanned  skins  in  which  the  people 
used  to  carry  their  wine — one  that  had  been  used 
before,  an  old  one,  dry  and  cracked  and  rotten — 
and  filling  it  with  the  exuberant  and  boisterous  spirit 
fresh  from  the  vine.  "The  bottle  breaks  and  the 
wine  runneth  out."  The  old  will  not  hold  the  new. 
The  Jewish  conceptions  of  life,  hard,  arid,  rotten, 
cannot  contain  the  new  fiery  inspirations  and  ways 
of  living  which  He  brings. 

It  is  not  necessary  now  to  go  more  fully  into 
Christ's  first  application  of  His  figure.  Enough  for 
us  at  present  that  it  contains  this  idea :  that  what  is 
new  and  strong  and  fiery  must  have  something  solid 
and  strong  to  hold  it.  This  is  the  truth  which  we 
need  to-day.  The  New  Year's  time  is  full  of  reso- 
lutions. I  should  be  sorry  indeed  to  look  over  such 
a  congregation  as  this,  gathered  on  the  first  Sunday 
of  a  New  Year,  and  not  believe  that  there  were 
many  people  here  who  had  resolved  on  better  lives, 
and  taken  up  new  ways  of  living  for  this  new  open- 
ing period  of  their  life.  To  give  up  some  old  waste- 
ful, foolish,  wicked  habit ;  to  face  and  wrestle  with 
some  old  persistent  sin ;  to  take  up  some  known 
duty  that  has  been  long  neglected;  to  draw  away 
from  some  companionship  which  we  know  is  harm- 
ing us;  to  make  amends  for  some  injury  and  reclaim 
some  friend  whom  we  have  wronged  and  lost ; — these 
are  the  resolutions  of  which  the  air  is  full.  How 
many  of  us  have  made  them  in  the  silence  of  the 
first  night,  or  the  bustle  of  the  first  day,  of  a  New 
Year!  And  with  them  all  there  has  been  a  deep 
misgiving  lest  they  should  all  be  broken — so  many 


3S6  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

have  been  made  before,  at  other  New  Year's  times, 
and  not  been  kept !  You  cannot  have  been  very 
thoughtful  in  your  resolving  unless  you  have  asked 
yourselves  with  some  anxiety,  "What  is  the  trouble? 
Why  are  so  many  strong,  good  resolutions  scattered 
and  lost?"  I  want,  if  I  can,  to  help  you  to  the  an- 
swer to  that  question.  The  difficulty  comes  in  great 
part,  I  am  sure,  from  the  absence  of  any  large,  com- 
prehensive plan  of  life,  as  strong  as,  and  as  worthy  of, 
the  resolutions  and  habits  of  life  which  we  want  to 
keep  in  it.  It  is  the  lack  of  a  bottle  fresh  and 
strong  enough  to  hold  the  wine.  This  is  the  idea 
to  which  I  most  earnestly  ask  your  attention. 

For  every  life  has  two  parts,  is  capable  of  being 
looked  at  in  two  different  ways.  It  has  its  general 
idea  or  purpose,  and  its  special  habits.  In  every  life 
there  are  its  particular  employments;  the  things 
which  the  man  or  woman  does  from  morning  to 
night  on  all  the  successive  days;  the  occupations 
that  employ  his  hands,  the  thoughts  that  occupy  his 
mind,  the  habits  of  his  daily  living.  And  then, 
around  them  all,  holding  them  all  into  some  kind  of 
unity,  giving  them  all  its  spirit  and  really  making  a 
unit  of  living  out  of  what  otherwise  would  be  a  mere 
series  of  disjoined  actions,  there  is  the  plan  of  life, — 
what,  on  the  whole,  the  man  or  woman  means  to 
be,  the  purpose  which  runs  through  all  the  days 
binding  them  all  together.  And,  however  it  may 
seem  to  us,  every  life  has  both  of  these ;  the  general 
purpose  and  the  special  habits.  It  is  not  confined 
to  those  who  are  conscious  of  it,  who  have  deliber- 
ately made  for  themselves  a  plan  by  which  they  live. 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  357 

We  think  about  St.  Paul.  We  are  sure  that  he 
had  thought  out  with  himself  what  life  was  for.  A 
great,  pervading  purpose  held  it  all  together.  "To 
me,  to  live  is  Christ,"  he  said;  and  every  act  he 
did,  every  thought  that  his  mind  dwelt  upon,  came 
out  from  and  returned  into  that  comprehensive 
scheme — the  realizations  of  Christ  in  himself  and  in 
the  world.  But  just  as  real,  though  not  as  clearly 
realized,  there  is  a  plan  of  life  in  a  poor  creature  of 
our  town,  who,  cursed  and  satisfied  with  wealth,  is 
merely  trying  to  put  into  every  hour  of  his  useless 
days  some  occupation  which  shall  bring  that  hour 
pleasantly  on  to  its  death.  As  truly  as  the  glory  of 
Christ  comprehended  all  the  activity  of  Paul,  so  his 
own  amusement,  his  own  pleasure,  embrace  all  of 
this  man's  life.  There  is  not  one  of  us  who,  whether 
he  keeps  it  out  of  sight  and  never  owns  it  to  himself, 
or  holds  it  up  before  him  for  continual  inspiration, 
has  not  a  ruling  purpose,  a  comprehensive  thought 
of  his  existence  within  which  everything  that  he  does 
is  enclosed  and  finds  its  place. 

How  various  they  are,  these  plans  or  ideas  of  life ! 
One  man's  is  social  ambition,  another  man's  is  po- 
litical success.  One  man  lives  that  he  may  become 
learned,  another  man  lives  that  he  may  be  thought 
learned,  another  man  that  his  children  may  prosper, 
another  man  that  his  country  may  be  magnified, 
another  man  that  his  soul  may  be  saved.  Around 
all  the  acts  that  each  one  of  us  does  is  wrapped  a 
reason  for  which  we  do  them  all, — a  great  envelop- 
ing purpose  in  or  conception  of  the  whole  of  life. 

And  there  is  a  certain  relationship  between  the 


358  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

general  purpose  and  the  special  acts  of  life.  There 
is  a  constant  tendency  for  them  to  come  into  and  to 
keep  in  harmony.  The  general  plan,  as  the  most 
constant  element,  is  always  trying  to  draw  the  spe- 
cial actions  into  its  own  likeness.  Life  is  in  dis- 
turbance when  the  two  are  out  of  harmony.  Life  is 
at  peace  only  when  the  two  completely  coincide, 
only  when  each  special  action  tends  to  fulfil  the 
general  purpose  for  which  the  man  is  living.  Other- 
wise there  is  disturbance  and  unrest. 

Now,  the  truth  which  is  presented  by  the  figure 
of  our  text  is  this :  that  the  special  habits  of  a  man's 
life  cannot  be  effectively  changed  and  made  new 
while  he  keeps  the  old  general  purpose  or  plan  of  life 
to  which  his  old  habits  were  adapted.  You  cannot 
put  new  wine  into  old  bottles.  You  must  have  new 
bottles  for  your  new  wine.  A  man  says  to  himself 
— perhaps  on  New  Year's  day,  perhaps  at  some  other 
time  when  life  seems  to  him  solemn  and  his  con- 
science is  awakened — "I  will  change  this  habit"; 
"I  will  give  up  this  wickedness";  "I  will  take  up 
this  duty."  He  says  it  to  himself  and  he  says  it  be- 
fore God,  How  is  it  that  so  soon  that  resolution, 
earnestly,  seriously  made,  has  melted  away  and  been 
lost?  Is  it  not  that  it  came,  a  single,  unsupported, 
uncongenial  thing,  into  a  life  with  which  it  had  no 
true  belonging?  The  general  plan  of  the  life  was  not 
altered.  It  remained  what  it  had  always  been, — as 
frivolous,  as  worldly,  as  unconscientious;  and  this 
new  act  of  goodness  found  itself  alone.  It  was  not 
part  of  any  consistent  whole;  and,  unsupported, 
unaccounted  for,  by  and  by  it  fell  away  and  died 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  359 

It  made  disturbance  and  confusion  in  the  life  where 
it  did  not  belong. 

It  is  like  an  artist  who  is  painting  a  picture.  His 
outline  is  all  drawn.  The  great  conception  of  the 
whole  stands  out  on  canvas.  And  then  a  change  of 
mood  makes  him  want  to  change  some  detail  of  his 
painting  to  something  wholly  different.  He  does  it, 
but  there  is  no  adaptation  of  his  general  design  to 
this  new  alteration;  and,  in  a  scheme  where  it  does 
not  belong,  his  alteration,  which  is  really  an  im- 
provement, seems  ugly  and  incongruous,  and  is 
painted  out.  So  of  the  builder  who  tries  to  change 
some  vital  portion  of  his  building,  without  making 
a  new  plan  which  shall  suit  the  change.  He  weakens 
and  distorts  the  whole.  So  of  the  statesman  who 
tries  to  alter  his  action  in  this  or  that  affair  without 
forming  some  clear,  new  policy  in  which  the  altered 
action  shall  have  its  reasonable,  intelligible  place. 
Everywhere  the  general  design  and  the  details  be- 
long together;  and  to  attempt  to  put  the  new  wine 
into  bottles  that  are  not  new  makes  mischief.  The 
general  design  is  broken  and  loses  even  the  sym- 
metry and  wholeness  that  it  had  before,  and  the  de- 
tailed attempts  result  in  nothing.  "The  bottles 
break,  and  the  wine  runneth  out." 

Let  us  think  of  one  or  two  instances  of  this  way 
in  which  a  special  resolution  comes  to  nothing  be- 
cause it  is  embraced  in  no  comprehensive,  enveloping 
purpose  of  a  new  life.  I  am  sure  you  will  recognize 
what  two  or  three  instances  only  can  suggest.  A 
man  is  used  to  self-indulgence.  That  is  the  rule  and 
purpose  of  his  life.     To  do  what  gives  him  the  most 


36o  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

pleasure — that  is  his  only  law.  His  living  has  been 
shaped  by  that  ever  since  he  was  a  mere  boy.  You 
know  such  men.  It  would  be  strange  if,  out  of  such 
a  company  as  is  gathered  here,  some  of  you  were 
not  such  men.  Your  own  indulgence,  the  greatest 
pleasure  that  you  can  get  from  living,  is  your  rule  of 
life.  But  something  stops  you  at  some  special  point. 
Some  deed  of  self-denial  which  you  see  done  seizes 
upon  your  imagination  or  your  conscience  and  fasci- 
nates it.  You  take  your  self-indulgence  at  one 
point  and  subdue  it.  There  is  some  one  thing 
which  goes  against  your  convenience,  which  you 
resolve  to  do.  There  is  some  one  satisfaction  in 
which  you  delight,  which  you  resolve  to  surrender. 

Our  history,  as  we  look  back  upon  it,  is  flecked 
and  spotted  all  over  with  such  resolutions.  You 
make  your  resolution  of  self-sacrifice  earnestly,  but 
it  stands  all  alone  in  your  life.  Never  does  it  occur 
to  you  that  your  whole  thought  of  life  is  wrong. 
Never  do  you  think  how  the  whole  life  ought  to  be 
self-devotion,  how  the  noblest  life,  the  true  life,  can- 
not be  lived  for  a  man's  self,  but  must  be  counted 
only  as  belonging  to  one's  brethren,  must  be  con- 
secrated as  a  whole.  Into  a  plan  of  life  all  self- 
indulgent,  this  one  self-sacrificing  habit  is  set  down; 
and  when  it  dwindles  and  grows  puny,  wasting  itself 
away  and  only  worrying  and  exasperating  the  uncon- 
genial life  in  which  it  stands,  you  wonder.  You 
need  not  wonder.  It  is  the  weakness  that  belongs 
to  every  attempt  to  reform  the  details  of  living  with- 
out conceiving  a  new  plan  of  life. 

You  make  a  rule  for  yourself  that  you  will  visit 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  361 

some  poor  people,  teach  in  some  charity  school, 
work  for  some  hospital.  How  dull  and  weary  it 
grows  by  and  by,  when  the  novelty  is  worn  away, 
unless  you  have  begun  by  rising  to  the  great  con- 
ception that  your  life  is  not  your  own,  that  it  be- 
longs to  God,  and  therefore  that  it  belongs  to  God's 
children.  Start  out  from  that.  Let  that  be  your 
great  habitual,  controlling  thought  of  life,  and  then 
your  visit  to  the  poor  or  to  the  hospital  or  to  the 
school  will  come  in  simply  as  one  utterance  of  this 
great  consecrated  life.  It  will  be  enshrined  and 
preserved  by  all  the  thoughts  and  hopes  of  life  about 
it.  It  will  be  like  a  tree  growing  in  its  native  soil, 
not  like  a  foreign  plant  set  out  in  its  own  little 
flower-pot  of  earth  in  the  midst  of  the  great  foreign 
desert. 

Or,  take  the  matter  of  honesty.  Your  law  of  life 
is  not  the  law  of  truth.  There  is  nothing  in  you  of 
that  high  moral  health  which  feels  a  falsehood  just 
as  the  physical  health  feels  a  tremor  of  weakness  or 
a  sting  of  acute  disease.  Your  life  is  false  and  un- 
real. But  in  the  midst  of  your  unreal  life  something 
sets  you  against  one  special  act  or  kind  of  falsehood. 
Some  circumstances  reveal  to  you  its  meanness,  and 
you  feel  that  you  would  be  ashamed  to  commit  it. 
You  resolve  that  that  one  special  lie  you  will  not 
tell;  in  that  one  point  yoii  will  be  honest.  You  faiL 
Your  resolution  goes  to  pieces.  By  and  by  you  are 
false  in  that  one  guarded  point,  and  why?  Because 
this  act  of  truth  is  guarded  by  no  large,  consistent 
law  of  truth.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  that  a  sense  of 
the  wickedness  and  meanness  of  all  falsehood  had 


362  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

taken  possession  of  you.  Imagine  that  by  the  know- 
ledge of  Christ  the  very  spirit  of  truth  had  entered 
into  you,  so  that  to  do  or  say  the  truth  was  your  new 
nature;  to  do  or  say  the  false  was  utterly  abhorrent 
to  you.  Then,  how  different  it  would  have  been ! 
Each  truthful  act  then  would  have  been  only  a  new 
flower  on  the  great,  healthy  tree,  only  another 
natural  effort  of  the  new  nature  that  is  in  you.  It 
would  not  be  then,  as  now,  a  single  drop  struggling 
against  the  stream,  struggling  up  while  the  stream 
is  all  hurrying  down ;  but  a  changed  stream,  with 
this  one  drop  borne  on  its  bosom  to  the  end  which 
it  is  all  seeking. 

Or,  take  again  a  business  man's  life.  Two  busi- 
ness men's  conceptions  may  differ  much  about  it  all 
— what  it  is  all  for,  this  striving  and  wrestling  and 
laboring  for  wealth.  To  one  man  it  seems  to  be  for 
the  mere  getting  of  the  wealth — nothing  beyond. 
To  another  man  it  seems  to  be  for  charity ;  in  get- 
ting wealth,  he  may  be  able  to  give  help  and  comfort 
to  his  fellow-men.  Let  those  two  men  be  stirred 
together  to  some  charitable  resolution,  both  together 
set  to  relieve  some  misery.  Is  not  the  result  differ- 
ent? How,  in  the  one  life,  this  new  impulse  is  all 
strange  and  foreign  !  How  the  mercenary  merchant 
flutters  and  worries  over  his  one  act  of  charity! 
How,  in  the  other  life,  it  falls  like  the  most  natural 
and  familiar  thing,  like  one  more  snowflake  dropped 
on  the  great  white  mountainside,  which  is  preserved 
by  finding  itself  at  once  with  its  own,  where  it 
belongs ! 

There  is  hardly  anything  sadder  than  to  see  a  man 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  ;^6s 

trying  to  do  a  single  noble  act  in  the  midst  of  an 
ignoble  conception,  a  low  idea,  of  life.  It  is  not  an 
uncommon  sight.  Some  cynic  who  has  taught  him- 
self to  think  that  life  is  all  a  fraud,  some  trifler  who 
has  persuaded  himself  that  life  is  all  a  play,  cannot 
escape  the  impulse  to  do  some  one  gen.erous,  brave, 
earnest  action,  which  implies  that  life  is  serious  and 
real.  It  is  contrary  to  all  the  cynic's  or  the  trifler's 
theories  of  living.  It  finds  no  countenance  in  any 
of  his  other  actions.  He  is  ashamed  of  it  and  does 
it  stealthily.  Its  freshness  and  vigorousness  confuse 
all  his  daily  composure.  How  like  it  is  to  what  the 
figure  of  our  text  describes.  A  brave  and  generous 
deed  has  in  it  all  the  fire  and  life  of  new  wine.  It  is 
full  of  ferment  and  disturbance.  It  is  tumultuous 
with  the  very  essence  of  the  grape.  It  must  have 
room  to  grow  and  to  mature.  It  cannot  be  shut 
up.  It  must  have  a  fresh,  large  life-idea  to  hold  it. 
It  must  have  room  to  work  in ;  otherwise  the  life  is 
all  confused  and  broken  by  it.  A  hypocrite  who  is 
betrayed  into  one  earnest  word,  a  misanthrope  who 
catches  one  strong  clear  glimpse  of  the  dignity  of 
man,  a  brutal  employer  who  tries  just  at  one  point 
to  be  kind  and  gentle  to  his  underlings, — all  of  these 
have  the  single  effort  crowded  and  hampered  by  the 
general  spirit ;  and  the  struggle,  after  a  little  spas- 
modic heaving  and  restlessness,  dies  out  and  is 
lost. 

Perhaps  all  this  is  truer  about  the  religious  life 
than  anywhere  else.  For  it  would  seem  as  if  there 
were  no  place  where  men's  good  sense  deserts  them 
so  utterly  as  where  they  need  it  most,  in  their  re- 


364  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

lationships  to  Him  who  requires  our  highest  and 
completest  service.  But  men  make  one  religious 
resolution  or  take  up  some  one  religious  habit. 
Men  make  up  their  minds  that  they  will  go  to 
church.  Men  set  apart  some  hour  which  shall 
always  find  them  on  their  knees  in  prayer.  Men 
determine  that  every  day  they  will  read  a  chapter 
of  the  Bible.  The  resolution  is  a  good  one,  and 
has  in  it  the  power  of  great  things.  It  has  in  it  the 
crude  and  unripe  essence  of  holiness.  It  is  big  even 
with  the  capacity  of  heaven. 

But  what  does  some  man  do?  He  takes  that  one 
religious  resolution  and  sets  it  down  into  the  midst 
of  a  perfectly  unreligious  life.  That  daily  prayer  to 
God,  which  implies  a  complete  dependence  on  the 
Almighty  strength,  is  flung  into  the  midst  of  a  day 
that  is  all  hard  with  self-reliance.  That  reading  of 
the  Bible  brings  a  stray  idea  of  Christ  and  plants  it 
into  the  most  secular  associations.  The  going  to 
God's  House  is  a  solitary,  exceptional  act,  right  in 
the  midst  of  a  career  that  never  otherwise  goes  up 
or  looks  up  to  God.  What  chance  is  there  for  such 
a  resolution?  What  wonder  if,  before  the  year 
grows  two  months  old,  the  prayer  has  dwindled  to  a 
moment's  form,  the  Bible  has  become  a  wearisome 
book,  the  church  a  barren  duty  that  will  soon  drop 
altogether,  that  any  small  excuse  can  easily  dispense 
with !  It  is  the  commonest  of  sights.  I  doubt  not 
many  a  prayer  has  been  said  and  many  a  chapter 
read  to-day,  and  there  are  many  men  and  women  in 
many  a  church  from  just  that  new  sense  of  duty. 
It  is  clear  enough  what  you  need :    some  compre- 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  365 

hensive  reverence  and  faith  into  which  these  reverent 
and  faithful  acts  may  enter  as  its  most  natural  ex- 
pressions, and  in  which  they  shall  be  able  to  utter 
and  develop  their  full  life.  You  must  begin  by 
loving  and  fearing  God,  and  then  your  several  acts 
of  love  and  fear  will  find  their  places  and  blossom 
into  interest  and  delight. 

So,  my  dear  friends,  what  we  want  to  plead  for 
to-day  is  not  primarily  new  resolutions.  It  is  a  new 
life.  I  hope  that  I  have  made  you  see  the  differ- 
ence. You  need  a  new  conception  of  what  you  are 
living  for,  a  new  picture  of  the  sort  of  life  which  it 
is  worthy  of  a  man  to  live.  You  must  have  this  or 
your  good  resolutions  surely  come  to  nothing. 

Th!s  -s  what  is  really  meant  by  what  puzzles  us 
sometimes,  as  we  find  it  in  the  Bible  and  in  religious 
books — that  the  bad  deed  in  a  life  that  has  a  noble 
plan  is  not  desperate,  and  that  a  good  deed  in  a  life 
that  is  set  on  evil  scarcely  gives  us  any  encourage- 
ment or  hope.  David  is  very  wicked  in  one  in- 
stance, and  yet  God  claims  him  for  His  own. 
Pharaoh  and  Judas  feel  some  impulse  of  pity  or  re- 
pentance, but  it  is  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  the  un- 
godliness and  evil  of  their  whole  plan  and  thought 
of  life.  This  seems  to  us  strange  at  first.  I  hope 
that  we  begin  to  understand  what  a  deep  reason, 
what  a  true  philosophy,  is  really  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
The  life  rules  the  action  as  the  stream  rules  its  drops. 
That  is  the  primary,  the  essential,  need  of  a  con- 
version. Before  there  really  can  be  a  new  conduct 
there  must  be  a  new  plan  of  life. 

And  how  can  that  be?     The  master  of  a  life  really 


366  NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES 

is  the  plan  of  that  life.  He  whom  we  serve  really 
marks  out  for  us  the  ambition  which  becomes  our 
law.  How  simple,  then,  that  makes  it !  If  you  want 
a  new  life  you  must  have  a  new  master.  Not  by 
sitting  down  and  saying  with  yourself,  "Now  I  will 
change.  I  will  be  reverent.  I  will  not  be  selfish. 
I  will  make  a  high  plan  of  life  instead  of  a  low  one." 
Not  that  will  change  you.  That  comes  to  nothing. 
You  must  make  Him  your  Master  whom  you  can 
completely  reverence,  who  can  draw  you  away  from 
your  slavery  to  yourself,  who  can  lift  you  to  His 
own  exaltation. 

Men  say,  "Why  do  you  always  preach,  'Believe 
in  and  follow  Christ?'  Why  not  say  always,  'Do 
this !  Do  that !  Make  this  new  habit !  Leave  off 
that  old  sin?'  Why  always  faith?  Why  not  al- 
ways duty?"  Because  there  can  be  no  truly  new 
habit  without  a  truly  new  life,  and  there  can  be  no 
new  life  without  a  new  master.  And  there  is  no 
other  master  strong  enough.  There  is  no  other 
name  by  which  we  can  be  saved  but  Christ's. 

Again,  men  stand  off  and  look  at  what  Christians 
are  doing,  and  they  say:  "How  could  I  ever  do 
such  things  as  those?  Can  you  think  of  me  as  pray- 
ing? Can  you  imagine  me  praising  God?  My  life 
will  not  hold  this  habit.  It  never  can."  No, 
surely ;  it  never  can ;  not  this  life,  this  worldliness, 
this  selfishness,  this  sensuality.  But  there  is  a  life 
more  truly  yours  than  this  in  which  you  live.  If 
you  will  make  Christ  your  Master,  this  new  life  shall 
open  to  you ;  and  in  it  all  these  new,  deep,  bright 
habits  shall  enter  and  not  seem  strange, — new  wine 


NEW  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  367 

in  new  bottles,  the  service  of  Christ  in  the  faith  of 
Christ, 

Oh,  let  that  new  service  come  with  the  New  Year 
— a  new  Master,  a  new  life,  and  then  new  words  and 
deeds  and  thoughts,  new  pleasures  and  new  hopes, 
filling  the  years  that  you  are  yet  to  live  here,  and 
making  them  anticipations  of  the  blessed  New  Year 
of  Eternity. 


COMPLETE  ALPHABETICAL  INDEX  OF  THE 

SERMONS  IN  THE  TEN  VOLUMES  BY 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS 


SERIES                       VOLUME  PAGE 

Accumulation  of  Faith 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  320 

All  Saints'  Day ist Use  of  Comfort  117 

Ark  of  the  Covenant 9th Law  of  Growth  328 

Ascension  Day 7th Church  Year  286 

Ash  Wednesday 7th Church  Year  no 

Average  and  Absolute  Virtue.  .  .  loth Seeking  Life  224 

Backgrounds  and  Foregrovinds . .    5th.  .  Light  of  the  World  106 

Battle  of  Life 6th Battle  of  Life  7 1 

Battlements  of  the  Lord 9th Law  of  Growth  80 

Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple.  .  .    4th.  .  .Visions  and  Tasks  127 

Beloved  Physician 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  216 

Blessing  of  the  Lord 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  213 

Brotherhood  in  Christ 4th .  .  .Visions  and  Tasks  76 

Bulk  and  Essence loth Seeking  Life  295 

Candle  of  the  Lord 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  i 

Certain  End 5th .  . Light  of  the  World  359 

Child's  Leadership loth Seeking  Life  19 

Choice  Young  Man 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  89 

Christian  Charity 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  336 

Christian  Church 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  177 

Christian  City 3d English  Churches  134 

Christian  Ministry 6th Battle  of  Life  327 

Christmas  Day 7th Church  Year  85 

Christmas  Eve 7th Church  Year  72 

Christ  ovir  Life 9th Law  of  Growth  99 

369 


370       ALPHABETICAL  INDEX  OF  SERMONS 

SERIES                                  VOLUME  PAGB 

Christ's  Wish  for  Man ist Use  of  Comfort  299 

Christ  the  Food  of  Man 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  232 

Church  of  the  Living  God 4th.  .  .Visions  and  Tasks  42 

Come  and  See 6th Battle  of  Life  129 

Conquerors  from  Edom ist Use  of  Comfort  37 

Consolations  of  God ist Use  of  Comfort  .  98 

Curse  of  Meroz 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  287 

Danger  of  Success 9th Law  of  Growth  273 

Deep  Calling  imto  Deep 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  234 

Delight  in  the  Law  of  God 9th Law  of  Growth  3 1 1 

Destruction  and  Fulfilment 4th. .  .Visions  and  Tasks  210 

Dignity  and  Greatness  of  Faith. .    6th Battle  of  Life  90 

Disciples  and  Apostles 4th. .  .Visions  and  Tasks  152 

Dispensation  of  the  Spirit 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  141 

Double  Cause 9th Law  of  Growth  167 

Duties  of  Privilege 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  86 

Earth  of  the  Redemption 4th Visions  and  Tasks  173 

Easter  Day 7th Church  Year  269 

Easter  Sermon ist Use  of  Comfort  210 

Egyptians  Dead  upon  the  Sea- 
shore     6th Battle  of  Life  55 

Endless  Conflict loth Seeking  Life  277 

Eternal  Humanity 6th Battle  of  Life  310 

Evil  Spirit  from  the  Lord 4th. .  .Visions  and  Tasks  297 

Eye  of  the  Soul 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  74 

Fasting.    A  Sermon  for  Lent.  .  .  2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  20c 

Feast  of  Tabernacles 9th Law  of  Growth  365 

Fifth  Sunday  in  Lent 7th Church  Year  196 

Fire  and  the  Calf 3d English  Churches  43 

First  Sunday  in  Advent 7  th Church  Year  i 

First  Sunday  in  Lent 7th Church  Year  130 

Food  of  Man ist Use  of  Comfort  265 

Foreign  Missions 6th Battle  of  Life  346 

Fourth  Sunday  in  Advent 7th Church  Year  54 

Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent 7th Church  Year  184 

Gamaliel 3d English  Churches  243 

Giant  with  the  Wounded  Heel. . .  4th .  .  .Visions  and  Tasks  93 

Gift  and  its  Return 3d English  Churches  265 

Gifts  of  God 8th .  .  New  Starts  in  Life  241 


ALPHABETICAL  INDEX  OF  SERMONS  371 

SERIES                                VOLUME  PAGE 

Glory  of  Simplicity 8th.  .  New  Starts  in  Life  158 

Going  up  to  Jerusalem 4th.  ..Visions  and  Tasks  316 

Go  Into  the  City 9th Law  of  Growth  184 

Good  Friday 7th Chtirch  Year  255 

Good  Friday  Sermon ist Use  of  Comfort  193 

Great  Attainment 8th .  .  New  Starts  in  Life  286 

Great  Expectation 4th .  .  .Visions  and  Tasks  353 

Greatness  of  Faith 3d ...  .  English  Churches  157 

Half  Life 9th Law  of  Growth  20 

Heavenly  Wisdom 8th.  .  New  Starts  in  Life  70 

Help  from  the  Hills 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  270 

Heroism  of  Foreign  Missions. ...  2d.  .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  163 

Higher  and  Lower  Standards.  .  .    6th Battle  of  Life  224 

Holiness  of  Duty 9th Law  of  Growth  199 

Homage  and  Dedication 6th Battle   of   Life  35 

How  Many  Loaves  Have  Ye?. .  .  2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  127 

How  to  Abound 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  140 

How  to  be  Abased 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  159 

Humility ist Use  of  Comfort  334 

Identity  and  Variety 5th  .  .  Light  of  the  World  57 

Illumination  of  Obedience 5th.  .Light  of  the  World  340 

Indestructible  Possessions loth Seeking  Life  74 

Individual    and   Collective    Hu- 

manit}' loth Seeking  Life  1 26 

In  the  Light  of  God 3d EngHsh  Churches  89 

Is  it  I? ist Use  of  Comfort  247 

Joy  and  Sorrow 8th.  .  New  Starts  in  Life  234 

Joy  of  Religion 8th .  .  New  Starts  in  Life  303 

Joy  of  Self-Sacrifice 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  22 

Joy  with  God 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  324 

Keeping  the  Faith ist Use  of  Comfort  57 

Knowledge  of  God 4th. . . .  Visions  and  Tasks  280 

Law  of  Growth 9th Law  of  Growth  i 

Law  of  Liberty 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  183 

Law  of  the  Spirit  of  Life 8th.  ..New  Starts  in  Life  252 

Leadership  of  Christ 6th Battle  of  Life  171 

Light  from  Darkness loth Seeking  Life  210 

Light  of  the  World 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  i 

Little  Sanctuaries  of  Life 8th.  .Nev;^  Starts  in  Life  176 


372       ALPHABETICAL  INDEX  OF  SERMONS 

SERIES                                  VOLUME  PAGE 

Living  Epistles i oth Seeking  Life  no 

Make  the  Men  Sit  Down 4th..  .Visions  and  Tasks  226 

Manliness  of  Christ 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  253 

Man  of  Macedonia 2d.  .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  91 

Man's  Wonder  and  God's  Knowl- 
edge      3d ...  .  English  Churches  65 

Man  with  One  Talent ist Use  of  Comfort  138 

Man  with  Two  Talents 4th. .  .  Visions  and  Tasks  192 

Marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  355 

Material  and  the  Spiritual 9th Law  of  Growth  1 50 

Mind's  Love  for  God 3d.  .  .  .English  Churches  22 

Mitigation  of  Theology 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  337 

Mothers  Wonder 4th. .  .  Visions  and  Tasks  20 

Motive  of  Religion 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  36 

My  Brother's  Keeper 9th Law  of  Growth  115 

Mystery  of  Iniquity 6th Battle  of  Life  i 

Mystery  of  Light 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  305 

Mystery  of  Man loth Seeking  Life  259 

Natural  and  Spiritual  Forces loth Seeking  Life  312 

Natural  and  the  Spiritual 6th Battle  of  Life  242 

Nature  and  Circumstances 3d.  .  .  .English  Churches  200 

Nearness  of  Christ 6th Battle  of  Life  277 

Nearness  of  God loth Seeking  Life  37 

Necessity  of  the  Social  Life loth Seeking  Life  91 

Need  of  Self- Respect 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  147 

New  and  Greater  Miracle 5th.  .  Light  of  the  World  24 

New  Birth loth Seeking  Life  193 

New  Experiences 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  287 

New  Starts  in  Life 8th .  .  New  Starts  in  Life  i 

New  Wine  in  New  Bottles loth Seeking  Life  353 

Old-New  and  the  New-Old 10th Seeking  Life  57 

Opening  of  the  Eyes 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  194 

Passion  Week 7th Church  Year  222 

Pattern  in  the  Mount 3d ...  .  English  Churches  i 

Peace  in  Believing 6th Battle  of  Life  187 

Peace    which     Passeth     Under- 
standing     9th Law  of  Growth  219 

Perfect  Faith 5th.  .  Light  of  the  World  306 

Pillar  in  God's  Temple 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  60 


ALPHABETICAL  INDEX  OF  SERMONS  373 

SERIES                                VOLUME  PAGE 

Planter  and  the  Rain 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  270 

Positiveness  of  the  Divine  Life.,    ist Use  of  Comfort  353 

Power  of  an  Uncertain  Future. .   9th Law  of  Growth  39 

Prayer 6th Battle  of  Life  296 

Pre-eminence  of  Christianity. .  .  .    8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  320 

Present  and  Future  Faith ist Use  of  Comfort  157 

Principle  of  the  Crust 6th. Battle  of  Life  1 53 

Priority  of  God 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  40 

Purpose  and  Use  of  Comfort. ...    ist Use  of  Comfort  i 

Relative  and  the  Absolute 9th Law  of  Growth  236 

Rest 9th Law  of  Growth  133 

Sacredness  of  Life 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  106 

Safety  and  Helpfulness  of  Faith.  4th Visions  and  Tasks  333 

Sanctuary  of  God 6th Battle  of  Life  108 

Sea  of  Glass  Mingled  with  Fire. .   4th. .  .Visions  and  Tasks  1 10 

Second  Sunday  in  Advent 7th Church  Year  18 

Second  Sunday  in  Lent 7th Church  Year  150 

Secret  of  the  Lord 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  271 

Seeking  Life i  oth Seeking  Life  i 

Self-Consciousness  and  Self-For- 

getfulness loth Seeking  Life  178 

Seriousness  of  Life 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  73 

Shortness  of  Life ist Use  of  Comfort  315 

Silence  of  Christ 5th .  .  Light  of  the  World  1 24 

Sons  of  God 9th Law  of  Growth  346 

Soul's  Refuge  in  God ist Use  of  Comfort  78 

Spiritual  Man 9th Law  of  Growth  294 

Spiritual  Struggle 9th Law  of  Growth  61 

Standing  Before  God 4th.  ..Visions  and  Tasks  60 

Stone  of  Shechem 6th Battle  of  Life  260 

Stom  and  Calm 8th .  .  New  Starts  in  Life  1 93 

Strength  of  Consecration 9th Law  of  Growth  253 

Sufficient  Grace  of  God 3d ...  .  English  Churches  112 

Sunday  after  Christmas 7th Church  Year  97 

Sunday  r.ext  before  Easter 7th Church  Year  209 

Sword  Bathed  in  Heaven 4th. .  .Visions  and  Tasks  262 

Symbol  and  the  Reality ist Use  of  Comfort  282 

Symmetry  of  Life 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  no 

Tares  and  tt^  Wheat 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  20 


374      ALPHABETICAL  INDEX  OF  SERMONS 

SERIES                                VOLUME  PAGE 

Third  Sunday  in  Advent 7  th Chiirch  Year  35 

Third  Sunday  in  Lent 7th Church  Year  167 

Thursday  before  Easter 7th Chiirch  Year  239 

Timeliness 4th. .  .Visions  and  Tasks  244 

Transfigviration  of  Christ 7th Church  Year  336 

Tree  of  Life loth Seeking  Life  161 

Trinity  Sunday 7th Church  Year  318 

Trinity  Siinday  Sermon ist Use  of  Comfort  228 

Truth     Passes    Through     Faith 

Into  Power loth Seeking  Life  241 

Unseen  Spiritual  Helpers 8th.  .New  Starts  in  Life  51 

Unspotted  from  the  World ist Use  of  Comfort  174 

Valley  of  Baca 6th Battle  of  Life  18 

Visions  and  Tasks 4th . . .  Visions  and  Tasks  1 

Whitsunday 7th Church  Year  303 

Whitsunday  Sermon 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  217 

Whole  Views  of  Life 6th Battle  of  Life  208 

"Why  Covdd  not  We  Cast  Him 

Out  ? " 3d ...  .  English  Chtu-ches  179 

Willing  Surrender 3d.  .  .  .English  Churches  221 

Wings  of  the  Seraphim Sth.  . Light  of  the  World  253 

Withheld  Completions  of  Life. .  .    ist Use  of  Comfort  19 

Word  and  Deed 10th Seeking  Life  142 

Work  and  Rest loth Seeking  Life  331 

Young  and  Old  Christian 2d. .  .Candle  of  the  Lord  39 

"Your  Joy  no  Man  Taketh  from 

You  " 3d ... .  English  Churches  28S 


A   Library    of  Information    in   One  Volume 

THE   TEMPLE 

BIBLE  DICTIONARY 

Edited  by 

The  Rev.  W.  EWING,  M.  A. 
The  Rev.  J.  E.  H.  THOMSON,  D.  D. 


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THE    TEMPLE   BIBLE    DICTIONARY 


THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  DICTIONARY. 

THE  REV.  W.  EWING,  M.  A.,  the  Editor-in-Chief,  is  a 
native  of  the  South  of  Scotland.  He  graduated  from  the 
University  of  Glasgow  with  distinction  in  Logic  and  Moral 
Philosophy.  After  taking  a  post-graduate  theological  course 
at  the  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow,  he  studied  at  Leipzic 
under  Delitzch,  and  after  ordination  went  to  Palestine  as  a 
missionary — his  work  there  being  centered  principally  around 
Tiberias,  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

Here  his  proficiency  in  the  native  tongues  and  his  persistent 
activity  made  him  an  influence  throughout  the  surrounding 
country,  both  in  the  villages  of  the  peasantry  and  in  the 
encampments  of  the  wandering  Arabs. 

Returning  to  England  in  1893,  Mr.  Ewing  has  occupied 
important  pulpits  in  Birmingham,  Glasgow,  Stirling,  and 
Edinburgh. 

He  has  also  contributed  a  great  deal  to  current  literature  on 
oriental  subjects.  He  wrote  many  of  the  articles  dealing  with 
the  East  in  the  dictionaries  edited  by  Dr.  Hastings,  and  is  the 
author  of  the  well  known  book,  "Arab  and  Druze  at  Home." 

For  upwards  of  seven  years  he  has  contributed  articles  on 
oriental  subjects  to  the  American  Sunday  School  Times,  thus — 
so  to  speak — preparing  himself  for  the  very  responsible  posi- 
tion he  now  occupies  as  editor  of  the  TEMPLE  BIBLE  DIC- 
TIONARY. 

DR.  J.  E.  H.  THOMSON,  D.  D.,  the  Associate  Editor,  is 
also  a  Glasgow  University  graduate,  but  took  his  post-graduate 
work  at  Edinburgh,  where  he  was  medallist  in  Logic  and 
Moral  Philosophy. 

After  graduation  he  engaged  in  literary  work,  and  travelled 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  His  first  important  book,  "Books 
Which  Influenced  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles,"  appeared  in  1891 
and  at  once  took  rank  as  a  standard  work  on  Apocalyptic  litera- 
ture and  gained  him  admission  to  the  staff  of  the  "Pulpit 
Commentary.  " 

In  1895,  Dr.  Thomson  went  tc  Palestine  as  Free  Church 
Missionary  to  the  Jews,  and  was  stationed  at  Safed,  in 
Napthali,  the  loftiest  city  in  Palestine.  From  this  point  he 
made  frequent  journeys  throughout  Palestine  to  all  the 
points  famous  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 


THE    TEMPLE   BIBLE   DICTIONARY 


Briefly,  the  practical  experience  of  both  Editors  has  put 
them  in  a  position  to  know  what  is  needful  in  a  Bible  Diction- 
ary which  is  to  be  used  by  practical  workers  and  students — 
and  has  given  them  that  thorough,  first-hand  knowledge  of 
Bible  Lands  and  Peoples,  which  only  actual  contact  can 
bestow. 

THE  LIST  OF  CONTRIBUTORS  incudes  manyof  the  best 
orientalists  and  archaeologists,  the  names  of  such  men  as  Pro- 
fessor Margolioth,  M.  A.,  Lift.  D.,  etc.,  professor  of  Arabic  in 
the  University  of  Oxford,  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  LL.D.,D. 
C.  L.,  Lift.  D.,  professor  of  Assyriology  in  the  same  Univer- 
sity, the  Lord  Bishop  of  Ripon,  Professors  Mackintosh  of 
Edinburgh  University,  Wenley  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 
Dajman  of  Leipzic,  Anderson  Scott  of  Cambridge,  James 
Robertson  of  Glasgow,  being  guarantees  of  accuracy,  scholar- 
ship, culture  and  precision. 

THE  OBJECT  OF  THE  WORK: 

The  results  of  the  research  and  criticism  have  in  the  last 
few  years  been  cumulative  in  their  effect.  Egypt  and  the 
Euphrates  Valley,  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  Palestine  itself, 
through  the  researches  of  Ramsay,  Petrie,  Conder  and  others, 
have  yielded  up  enough  of  their  secrets  for  us  to  be  able  to 
lift  with  practical  completeness  the  veil  which  has  for  centuries 
obscured  Bibical  lands  from  the  accurate  comprehension  of 
Western  people. 

At  the  same  time  the  vastly  conflicting  views  of  scholars 
with  regard  to  the  date,  authorship,  mode  of  composition,  trust- 
worthiness, etc.  of  the  various  books  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture 
have  settled  down  to  a  stable  mean  which  is  not  liable  to  vary 
very  much  for  many  years  to  come — either  in  the  direction  of 
conservatism  or  in  that  of  radical  departure  from  accepted 
values. 

Consequently  it  has  seemed  to  the  editors  that  this  is  a 
favorable  period  at  which  to  put  forth  a  work  which  shall 
embody  late  results  in  both  Biblical  Archeology  and  Critical 
Inquiry  without  the  prospect  of  its  almost  immediately  becom- 
ing out  of  date  in  either  department. 

Excellent  work  has  been  done  in  some  larger  Dictionaries  of 
the  Bible  recently  published,  but  their  size  and  price  put  them 


THE    TEMPLE    BIBLE   DICTIONARY 


beyond  the  reach  of  many  who  are  keenly  alive  to  the  neces- 
sity for  competent  and  trustworthy  guidance  in  the  study  of 
the  Scriptures. 

The  Editors  therefore  believe  that  there  is  room  for  a  Dic- 
tionary such  as  this,  which,  leaving  aside  all  that  is  merely 
theoretical  and  speculative,  presents  simply,  shortly  and 
clearly  the  state  of  ascertained  knowledge  on  the  subjects 
dealt  with,  at  a  price  which  brings  the  latest  results  of 
scholarly  investigation  within  the  reach  of  every  earnest 
student  of  the  Bible,  and  which  for  the  working  clergyman, 
the  local  preacher,  the  class  leader,  the  Sunday  Schoolteacher, 
the  travelling  missionary,  offers  an  indispensable  vade-mecum 
of  scientific  and  critical  knowledge  about  Biblical  landr  peo- 
ples and  literature. 

THE  BOOK  ITSELF: 

The  volume  is  a  singularly  handsome  one  of  eleven  hundred 
pages,  9  inches  by  6/^  in  size,  bound  in  dark  maroon  cloth, 
whh  gilt  back  and  tinted  top  and  edges.  There  are  over  500 
explanatory  illustrations  —  many  from  entirely  new  photo- 
graphs— and  eight  colored  maps. 

A  sensible  series  of  ingenious  contractions,  not  only  of 
proper  names,  but  of  ordinary  words  also,  has  made  it  possible 
to  pack  information  very  much  closer  in  these  pages  than  is 
usual  elsewhere. 

The  Dictionary  to  the  Apocrypha  is  in  a  section  by  itself, 
with  a  special  introductory  article.  There  are  also  special 
articles  on:  The  Influence  of  the  Bible  on  English  Literature; 
The  New  Testament  Apocrypha;  Apocalyptic  Literature;  The 
Targums;  Versions  of  the  Scripture;  Phiio  Judaeus;  Josephus; 
and  The  Language  of  Palestine  in  the  time  of  Christ;  while 
in  the  Text  of  the  Dictionary  everything  possible  has  been 
done  by  the  use  of  thin  opaque  paper,  appropriate  sizes  of 
type,  and  a  serviceable  system  of  cross-references  to  make  the 
book  more  legible,  more  intelligible,  and  more  generally  com- 
fortable to  read  than  any  other  book  of  its  kind  in  existence. 

It  is  the  devout  hope  of  the  Editors  that  at  last  a  Bible 
Dictionary  has  been  produced  which  will  be  the  standard  of 
its  kind  for  many  years  to  come,  both  as  to  fullness  and  erudi- 
tion of  contents  and  to  mechanical  excellence  of  bookmaking. 


Date  Due 


